Caelica

ik

v^

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ELIZABETHAN SONNET
CYCLES

CiELICA

LIZABETHAN
SONNET-
CYCLES

EDITED BY

MARTHA FOOTE CROW

-X]U

C^LICA

BY

FULKE

GREVILLE,
J. LORD
BROOKE

KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER^AND
CO. PATERNOSTER HOUSEiLONDON
W.C. - . 1898

V

m/ 2 3 1955

10243?!}

CJELICA

FULKE GREVILLE, LORD
BROOKE

I I T.KE GREVILLE, LORD
BROOKE

The name of Fulke Greville will be for ever
associated with that of his friend and kinsman,
Sir Philip Sidney. These two, the true Damon
and Pythias of Elizabethans, were of the same
age, entered Shrewsbury School on the same day,
and through their university career, Sidney at
Oxford, and Greville at Cambridge, had frequent
interchange of visits. Together they set sail upon
the troublous sea of court fjivour ; together they
sought preferment, courted the Muse, discussed
jihilosophy, planned projects of emprise. When
Sir Philip gave the Queen for a New Year's gift
an embroidered cambric smock edged with bone-
lace of gold and silver, Fulke (ireville presented a
similar one similarly decorated ; and when Sir

4 C^LICA

Philip -wrote a sonnet-series dedicated to tlie
praise of a fair lady whom he called Stella, his
friend did likewise, choosing the poetic name of
Caelica for his inspirer. On the day when, in the
chivalrous entertainment in honour of the Duke of
Anjou, the Four Foster Children of Desire stormed
the Fortress of Perfect Beauty, Sidney and
Greville were two of the four, and (ireville's
gilded armour, the tawny taffeta of his pages and
trompeterSj were equal in splendour to the blue
and golden armour and velvet and feathers of Sir
Philip and his train. With Sidney's other great
friend. Sir Fidward Dyer, Cireville walked as pall-
bearer on that sad day in October 1586" when the
heavens mourned the loss of their brightest star ;
of these two friends Sidney had written ;

" My two and I be met
A happy blessed Trinitee ;
As three most jointly set,
In firmest band of Unitie,
Joyne hearts and hands, so let it be,
Make but one minde in Bodies three."

And to these two friends Sidney left his books.
To Sidney, Fulke Greville dedicated his works ;

C .E L I C A 5

and lie directed that on his tomb shouhl be in-
scribed, along with the minor facts, tliat he was
servant to Queen EHzabeth and councillor to King
James, that he was the friend of Sir Philip
Sidney; and then, as Winstanly says, for the great
love he bore him he wrote his life. This " price-
less memorial of a peerless friendship," as Grosart
calls it, is our best account of the life and
character of that "starry paladin." It was Fulke
Greville that overheard Philip's father call him
lumeti familice sua'. It was Greville who bore the
message of William the Silent to Queen Elizabeth
in regard to the inestimable worth of Sidney, a
message Sidney never allowed him to deliver. Over
Greville's true affection death had no power, and
time could not dull his memories of that delight-
ful humorousness, those " showers of sweet dis-
course " enjoyed in his early years. Through the
long period of his life — he lived till 1^8 — he
kep+^^ the memory of that friend in his choicest
shrine. " It delights me," he declared when
writing the Life, " to keep company with him,
even after death, esteeming his actions, words
and conversation, the daintiest treasure my mind

6 C yE L 1 C A

could tht'ii lay up, or can at this day iiii])art to
our })osterity." This faithfulness sj)eaks for the
nobihty of Fulke Greville's character ; but still
more the fact that what he loved in Sidney was
that " his heart and tongue went one way," and
that he was ever a "lover of mankind." This
power to pierce to the heart of the matter and to
discriminate and appreciate the true spiritual
values was Avhat made Fulke Greville worthy to
be the friend of Sir Philip Sidne)^

The earlier life of Fulke Greville shows the
career of an Elizabethan knight under a monarch
that succeeded in winning the admiration of states-
men and the devotion of courtiers. He came with
Sidney to Court early in 1577. They were then
twenty-three years old, as fair and promising a
pair of youths as ever asked the favoiu* of fortune.
Greville's attractiveness of bearing and prudence
of demeanour made him soon a favourite, and
his fortunes steadih' rose. In 1587 Walsingham
speaks of " my cousin Greivill's friends which
are manie and of great callyng ; " he was " her
Majesties servant and a gentleman of whonie
she maketh some good accompt." Through him

C ^ L I C A 7

tlie Queen's favour is solicited, he attends ban-
quets, is " great with the Secretary," is men-
tioned among " men of accompt," is made a
knight in 1597, in l602 looks to be "counsailor
having so long served her Majesty." (jreville
came to Court " backt by a ])lentifull fortune ; "
yet under Elizabeth he held some most rich
offices : as Clerk of the Signet to the Council in
Wales he had "dyett for himself and his servant
in the Queen's household and twenty marks per
annum," and the fees — for every letter at the
suit of the party. Is; for every placard, 2s; for
writing an exemplification and sealing it, 2s. 6d.
'J'his clerkship is said to have brought him £2000
a year, a sum which must be multiplied a dozen
times to bring it to the purchasing power of to-
day. Later offices under James I. brought larger
salaries. As Chancellor of the Exchequer, he
had 40 marks and £l2 17s. 6d. livery out of the
wardrobe. As Under Treasurer his fee was
<£17.'> ()s. 8d., and £4 6s. 8d. for livery. He
accumulated great wealth, and, it was com-
j)!ained, became avaxncious. Glimpses from be-
hind the scenes at Elizabeth's court are caught

^ C^LICA

in the letters of Whyte and Molineux, the secre-
taries to the Sidneys. Rowland Whyte frequently
mentions "Mr. Grevill;" with that invaluable
retailer of Court gossip he seems not to have been
a favourite, and 30 (the cipher number that re-
presented him) comes in for a goodly share of
abuse. " He shall be sure never to have it if I
can keep him from it/' cries he, speaking of a
certain office. He keeps close track of what
Sir Philip's old friend is doing. Mr. Greville
"countenances" a certain gift; "makes friends"
for a certain office ; " laboureth tooth and naile "
for some scheme ; promises, ever promises, some-
thing for the Sidneys' furtherance at court. It
is he that repoi-ts the complaint of ^14,000 spoil
against the Knack-^^'ood estate, settled probably
in Greville's favour. Molineux, Sir Henry
Sidney's secretaiy, was also against Greville, but
this may be because Sir Henry had asked that
Greville's name should be placed before his in a
cei-tain patent of office. Sir Philip's letter, asking
Molineux to be more favourable to Greville is a
testimonial to him and to their friendshij). It is
as follows :

C .E L I C A 9

" I Pray yow, for my Sake, you will not make
yowr self* an Instrument to crosse my Cosin Fowkes
Tytle in any Part, or Construction of his Letters
Patentes. It will turne to other Boddies Good,
and to hurte him willingly weare a foolish Dis-
courteisy. I pray yow, as yow make Accownt of
nie, lett me be sure yow will deale herein accord-
ing to my Request, and so I leave yow to God.
At Bainards Castell, this 10th of April, 1581. —
Your loving Fi-end, Phiupp Sidney."

Molineux's answer to this letter promises, in
servile terms, compliance. Among other acqui-
sitions Greville came into possession of Wanvick,
then a ruin, and, Dugdale says, beautified it with
the most pleasant gardens, plantations and walks,
and adorned it with rich furniture, so that, says
he, " considering its situation no place in that
midland part of England does compare with it for
stateliness and delight." He was frequently sent
to Parliament, where Bacon said that " Mr. Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer spake finely " and " ele-
gantly." He helped to take Essex, and his name
occurs frequently in important Parliamentary

10 C.'ELICA

committees. Though Fulke Greville desired as
much as did Sidney to distinguish himself in the
adventures of that time, the Queen ke})t liim as
strictly by her side. If he attempted to go he
■was sent after and "stayed," and was made to
suffer the jienalty of her displeasure — not to be
allowed to kiss her hand for certain desolate days.
But he went with Sidney on the Casimir journey,
and attended Anjou to Antwerp ; he accompanied
Languet to Germany when he returned from
England. He also visited Ii'eland, and he was in
Normandy for a while under Henry of Navarre.
But wlien Sidney went to the Low Countries the
Queen refused to let his friend accompany him,
and when Essex suggested his going to the Azores,
Elizabeth forbade : he might not go far, nor into
any great hazards. His writings show that his
mind went out into all parts of the newly-dis-
covered world, and his '' cabin," we are told,
" was stored with books and sea-cards." Under
.James he retained his position and oftices, and was
made Bai'on Brooke and Gentleman of the King's
Bedchamber in 1620-1. The mystery in connec-
tion with his death has never been fullv solved ;

C .E L I C A 11

he was imirdered at Brooke House in Holborn by
a serving man who innnediately thereafter took
his own Hfe.

Greville's career had from the first a Hterary
aspect. Wood says that he was " favoui'ed by
Queen EHzabeth and such as knew he had interest
in the Muses " ; and Naunton, in l6S0, says : " He
came to the Court in his youth and prime . . . and
there are of his now extant some fragments of his
})oem, and of those times, which do interest him
in the Muses ; and which shews the Queen's
election had ever a noble conduct, and its motions
more of vertue and judgment than of fancy." He
was a member of that Areopagus which, in the
autumn of J o7}j, ordained, as Spenser cried to
Harvey, " a general surceasing and silence of bold
rhymers and also of the very best too; instead
whereof they have, by authority of their whole
senate, prescribed certain laws and rules of
quantities of English syllables for English verse."
Sidney was the ruling spirit in this literary con-
clave, and of his experiments in the new laws we
have some examples ; of Greville's, howevex*, none
remain, and perha])s it is just as well.

12 C.ELICA

Reminiscences, liowever, of tlie Areopagus days
and of these early interchanges of thought with
Sidney and with Spenser appear occasionally in
his writings. Like Sidney, Greville too was " the
special favourer and maintainer of all kinds of
learning." While Sidney lived, they Avere united
in their literai'y hospitalities. The philosophical
cast of Greville's mind must have made him feel a
deep interest in Sidney's friend, Languet, who
said of him, " His fiaendship is like a gem added to
my treasures," as well as in the distinguished
Italian guest of 1584, Giordano Bruno. It was in
an upper chamber at the house of Fulke Greville
that the sumptuous banquet was given in honour
of that great j)hilosopher and teacher. Here, to
a group including probably Dudley, Sidney, Wal-
singham, Florio and other courtiers, the inspii'ed
scholar discoursed in Italian of " moral, n)cta-
physical, mathematical and natural speculations."
Such an evening as that, could it have been
reported, would rival in interest and fascination
the famous nights at the Mermaid I Wjien
Spenser went to Ireland in 1580, he was enter-
tained on board ship by Greville, and one can but

C.^LICA 15

wisli that the name of Spenser had been found
among the beneficiaries of Greville's patronage.
To the " incessant supplication " of Camden, for
whose " great learning in English and other an-
ticjuities," as quaint Anthony a Wood says, both
Queen Klizabeth and himself had " an especial
respect," Fulke Greville was glad to listen.
Camden acknowledged these favours enthusi-
astically, and assigned a piece of plate to his
benefactor in his will. Greville furthered the
interests of Bishop Overall, and Speed acknow-
ledges indebtedness to him. He befriended
Bacon, corresponded with Daniel touching im-
provements in masks and interludes at court,
received young D'Avenant into his family, and
founded a lectureship at Cambridge. As to
Greville's fair use of his great opportunities for
dispensing favour. Bacon, for whose opinion, how-
e\er, in such a matter we should not greatly care,
^^^•ites that he used his influence with the Queen
honourably and "did many men good." His
genius was praised in many poetic addresses.
Thomas Wilson dedicated to him his translation
of the Diana of Montemayor, and Daniel his

14 C.ELI C A

Musophihis. Sonnets of adulation from Lok,
Daniel, Davies of Hei*efovd and otliers, were
addressed to one who, from first to last, was
thought of as the " common Rende-vous of
Worth."

The best of Fulke Greville's literary work was
probably done in his earlier life. In fact the title
page to the l633 edition of his works describes
them as "written in his youth and familiar
exercise with Sir Philip Sidney." "These exer-
cises of my youth," he calls them again. The
large ])art, at least, of CcvUca was com])osed
before 1.586, when fresh impressions, keen hopes,
and sympathetic companionships spurred the mind
to its best expx'ession. In the decade following
Sidney's death, the Countess of Pembroke was
for the most part at Wilton, and, with Daniel,
Avas discussing the canons of classic tragedy,
while both were experimenting in the com-
position of stately dramas built on the classic
models. Fulke Greville no doubt took part in
these discussions, and at this time was making
his two classic play-poems, Alnliam and Mustapha.
A growth from this work was the series of

c.^:lica 15

pliilosopliical poems Of Hinnane Learning, Of
Fame and Honour, Of Warrcs, Of Monarchy, Of
lieligion. 'I'hese were written in rhymed stanzas,
and were originally meant to be choruses to the
plays, but growing too bulky for that purpose
they were detached and made into separate
woi'ks. They were the offspring of the later
thoughts of the philosopher and statesman,
written perhaps in the intervals of attendance
at Court, when the delightful seclusion of reno-
vated Wai-wick invited him to ease and quiet.
Here we may safely guess the later sonnets in
Ccvlica were wi-itten, while thoughts of a debased
and degenerating Court made his mind bitter and
memoiy turned back to the days of glory in his
youth, when nobler impulses bore sway under a
native and patriotic ruler whose peculiar com-
bination of power and pettiness called forth at
once the admiration and the manly chivalry of
her courtiers.

But the first half of Ca'lica was surely the work
of early years, and the whole work betrays marks
of the experimenting spirit that was the chief
impulse in the Areopagus. This is shown bv the

16 C.ELI C A

variety of forms used, and by the independenc
of spmt expressed in the manifest yielding to th
Enghsh liking for the quatrain and couplet strut
ture. He is evidently acquainted with Italia;
devices^ but his sonnets are not Italianate. I
Ccelica had been written later, it is likely tha
it would have followed a form more amenabl
to nde. As regards form the pendulum swingi
here far away from the Italian finical niceuess anc
bondage of set intricacy, and over toward a poini
of considerable looseness, almost disorder ; it was
to swing back to a place where native genius
could ex})ress itself in a comjwsite form appro-
priate to lofty philosophy and concentrated pas-
sion. This, the author of Ccelica was to see in
the remarkable series of sonnet-cycles that ap-
peared in the last decade of the century, in
which experiment is seen to be approaching a
rule ; he was to see also the supreme example
of Shakespeare's sequence, in which the so-called
English form, three unlinked quatrains with alter-
nate rhymes followed by a clinching couplet,
received the stamp of authority from a master's
hand. Greville nowhere mentions that poet ; he

CJELICA 17

was born at Beauchamp Court, in Warwickshire,
not far distant from Shakespeare's home. He
was at one time Recorder for Stratford-on-Avon,.
and was many times elected Knight of the Shire
with Sir Thomas Lucy. But why should he speak
of Shakespeare ? Lord Brooke "was a great states-
man and fashionable courtier ; he it was that had
been able to make that "matchless Mustapha,"
which the highly pi*ejudiced Court circle had so
admired. Shakespeare, on the other hand, was
only a player, one to be sure whom the Sidneys
had taken up and whom he may have met at
Wilton among other beneficiaries of the family,,
and may have been kind to for young Herbert's
sake ; yet Shakespeare was only a player after all,
and Greville's sidewise look, it may have been,
was that which gored the player's heaii; and
forced from him that passionate cry for " potions
of eisel." To the popular drama Greville was
distinctly unfavourable. Speaking of his own
tragedies he says : " I have mndi? these tragedies
no plaies for the stage ; be it known it was no
part of my purpose to write for them against
whom so many good and gi'eat spirits have

B

18 C^LICA

already written." He did not aspire to be an
*' exact ai-tisan in that poetical mystery," the
play. In the Arcadia the moral lesson was the
chief thing, and he believed that Sidney himself
intended it to be so ; and with him, as AWth
Sidney, the teaching function of art was pre-
dominant.

So far as known Fulke Greville was never
married, yet he had the repute of being, at least
in external devotion to the ladies, a true courtier.
Rowland Whyte infoiTns us, on February 2, 1597,
that "Mr. Greville shall, or is married to my
Lady Hatton." Sir William Hatton had died
in March 1596, and Lady Hatton was therefore
eligible ; but the item is no doubt mere gossip ;
nothing further is known about it.; and it is
mentioned here only because it goes well with
the report of Naunton, who, in l6"30, said of
Fulke Greville that " he lived and died a constant
courtier of the ladies." So far as known there is
nothing in Greville's biography to assist a guess
as to the lady designated under the heavenly
name of the sonnet-cycle. Lord Brooke's only
editor speaks of the love story as being real ;

CtELICA 19

who, in fact, can doubt it that reads through
the play-time and praising sonnets, and, following
the poet's changing mood, come to the lines :

" So in the boat of Fate I row
And looking to you, from you go."

" Only a heart fired electrically with a real flesh
and blood passion could so pulsate," says Dr.
Grosart. Grosart, however, yields the problem of
identification as at present insoluble. A beautiful
theory — if we only had something to support it —
would be that here in this celibate courtier is
found, among all the sighing knights that sur-
rounded the much-flattered and whimsical Queen,
one who really meant what he said, one whose
devotion was personal as well as patriotic. When
Greville came to Court, Elizabeth was fifty-five
years old but still willing to be adored by poetic
•courtiers and able to quicken the patriotic impulse
into something which, under sonneteers' tinsel-
embroidered finery, closely simulated at all events
the form of faithful love. The only sonnet in
Ccelica that can be identified as referring to any
certain individual is the eighty-second ; this star

20 C ^ L I C A

of the north, this virgin sitting upon a throne,
with the red and white rose quartered in her
face, can be no other than EHzabeth. This sonjiet-
gem is placed in the sequence at the point where
the poet-courtier has exhausted the praises of the
many-named ; it stands just before the long lyric
in which he bewails the failure of his suit and the
sonnet in which he finally renounces Cupid and
all his fancies, and turns to thoughts that "please
less and less betray." This is the crisis in the
sonnet-cycle story, and if Elizabeth is not the
protean personality hinted as Cynthia, Myraphil,
Myra, and Caelica, it certainly could not have
been difficult to convince her that the musical
words were intended to shadow forth her varied
charms. Elizabeth's hair was certainl}' auburn or
thereabouts, but so was that of many other sonnet-
honoured ladies, including Stella's ; and more-
over, Elizabeth often had a praising sonnet of her
own in many a sonnet- cycle Avhich Avas devoted in
the main to some other Cynthia. Greville's rela-
tions to the Queen were however particularly
close. Xaunton, in the Fragvienta Regalia, mentions
Fulke Greville among the favourites of Elizabeth,

CiELICA 21

and says that he " had no mean place in hei*
favour, neither did he hold it for any short time ;
he liad the longest lease and the smoothest time
•without rub of any of her favourites." This may
have been because the Queen was gratified to
have him remain unmarried ; it may also have
been because of the prudence and conciliatory
policy of Greville himself. But thei'e were rubs.
Fulke Greville was sometimes shut out from her
presence and favour like any other courtier, and
it would be easy to guess that some of those son-
nets on absence found their way to her hands on
an occasion of that kind. And in Lord Brooke's
old age, when in his luxurious " schollar's home " at
Warwick he looked back over his sated, darkening
life, and tremblingly interlined the poems of his
earlier inspirations, the youthful dream that stood
out in most roseate colours was, next to his com-
panionship with Sidney, his devotion to the
Queen.

" The blessed lady which then governed over
us," that "absolute Princess," "a sovereign which
rested her sex at home, and yet moved all sexes
abroad to their own good ; " " that majestical lady

22 C^LICA

excellent above both sexes ; " — these are some of
the ways in which he tries to voice his devotion
to her memory. Her powers as statesman ^\in
his praise who was himself an expeiienced states-
man. That " happily born and bred Princess "
possessed " the spirit of anointed gi*eatness/' and
knew how to curb the powers of nobles, and to
resen'e them as "brave halfe paces between a
throne and a people ; " a " monopolous use of
favourites " she avoided ; she could " work her
admirals to resign " when it seemed best for them
to do so ; she was a " she-David/' her nature " a
noune-adjective nature." There was " a sweet
stream of sovereign humors in that well-tempered
lady" ; "that princely heart of herswas a sanctuary "
to every subject ; to all her kingdom she was " a
working soule in a healthfull bodj'," It is thus
that his sad old eyes look back to " the blessed
and blessing presence of that unmatchable queen
and woman." Such devotion as this desei-ves
to be, if it is not, enshrined in a sonnet- cycle !

It may be that Ccelica does not worthily express.
so high a theme. Greville' was not first a poet ;
he was first a statesman, philosopher and courtier ;

CiELICA 23

after tliat, a poet. But in spite of incoherence of
structure and inversion amounting to mannerism,
in spite of liis " close mysterious and sententious
way of writing," he cei-tainly well deserves the
name of poet. Lamb, in fact, can'ied it a little
too far when he said, " Whether we look into his
plays, or his most passionate love poems, we shall
find all frozen and made rigid with intellect."
Obscurity there is ; but it does not require a study
equivalent to the learning of a new language to
understand his meaning, nor is the chief delight
in reading him the joy of exercising one's skill in
deciphering puzzles. Caelica is the v/ork in which
his genius moves most freely. Grosart speaks of
the "jungle-growths" of his poetry, but describes
Ca'lica as " rich and vivid the gi'aver and intense
and keen in passion the gayer love-sonnets,
arresting and memorable in many lines." There
are occasional poetic touches of gi'eat beauty, and
the frequent concentration of noble sentiments
into fit phrase makes nearly every page sparkle.
GrevUle estimated his own poetic gift most
humbly :

24 C ^ L I C A

" If I without distinction do set down
These humble precepts in a common stile."

" Let him that reads in this and in the rest
Each crudity to his fair end digest."

^'With humble sails after I had ventured once
upon this spreading ocean of images/' he says
again. Nowhere do we detect that self-asserting
spirit Avhich led so many of the poets in this age
•of self-discovery to cry out their belief in the
immortality of their own poetic creations. He
did not publish ; yet it is likely that he was
deterred not so much by humility as by fear of
losing royal favour. His discussions of monarchy
would not have sounded pleasant to the ear of
James, and the pessimistic cast of some of the
Jater poems in the Ccclica series can have come
only from the mood of later years, when amid the
growing corruption of the Stewart reign, the old
statesman looked longingly back to the glories of
his royal mistress. It was now " the decrepit age
of the world " ; he had found how unpleasant was
^"^the slippery place of Honor's steep," and, speak-
ing of Sidney's death, he says with pious if not

CiELICA 25

pessimistic resignatioiij " Neither am I for my part
so much in love with this life, nor believe so little
in a better to come as to complain of God for
taking him." The forty-fourth sonnet, one that
in the manuscript he crossed for omission, expresses
this mood, and all through the latter half of the
series the melancholy feeling that accompanied his
gradual weaning from the world is prominent.

When Lord Brooke had become, as he said, a
" prisoner of age," he took up again the manuscript
of Ccelica, arranged the sonnet-poems in the order
he desired, correcting them in old-age hand-
writing with many interlineations. This manu-
script is preserved at Warwick and has afforded,
through Grosart's collation, a few suggestions for
the present text which are given in the notes.
It was no doubt then that he added those numbers
that are the autobiogi*aphy of his later years. In
doing this he was following in the wake of Chap-
man, and other later sonneteers, who believed that
the questions of deepest philosophical and spiritual
import were the proper subject for the sonnet-
cycle. Ccelica is not a love story only ; it is the
story of the spiritual struggles of a soul-endowed

26 CiE L I C A

human being. His thoughts of death are sincere ;
it is no pastoral death he is considering ; we follow
with suspense the career of a soul struggling
toward peace. And the victory appears ■with him
as it did with Sidney. No poet since his time
has touched the theme of these "obstinate
questionings " more satisfactorily than has Fulke
Greville.

" Questions again which in our hearts arise

Though they be curious, godless and unwise,
Yet prove our nature feels a Deity ;
For if these strifes rose out of other grounds,
Men were to God as deafness is to sounds."

The philosophical aspects of Shakespeare's sonnets
have been a stumbling-block to many ; here is a
sonnet-sequence in which the soul-struggle is alsa
the main theme ; in its subject-matter Ccelica
comes nearer to Shakespeare's philosophical grasp
than does the attempt of any other Elizabethan
sonneteer.

CiELICA

Love, the delight of all well-thinking minds.
Delight, the fruit of virtue dearly loved.
Virtue, the highest good that reason finds,
Reason, the fire wherein men's thoughts be
proved,
Are from the world by nature's power bereft.
And in one creature for her glory left.

Beauty her cover is, the eye's true pleasure ;
In honour's fame she lives, the ear's sweet music;
Excess of wonder grows from her true measure ;
Her worth is passion's wound, and passion's physic ;
From her true heart clear springs of wisdom

flow,
WTiich imaged in her words and deeds men
know.

58 C.ELICA

Time fain would stay that she might never leave

her,
Place doth rejoice that she must needs contain

her.
Death craves of Heaven that she may not bereave
her;
Delight, love, reason, virtue let it be.
To set all women light but only she.

C ^ L I C A 29

Fair dog which so my heart dost tear asunder.
That my Hfe's blood my bowels overfloweth,
Alas, what wicked rage conceal'st thou under
These sweet enticing joys they* forehead showetli ?

Me whom the light-'winged god of long hath

chased ;
Thou hast attained, thou gav'st that fatal wound.
Which ray soul's peaceful innocence hath rased.
And reason to her servant humour bound.

Kill therefore in the end, and end my anguish.

Give me my death, methinks even time up-
braideth

A fulness of the woes wherein I languish ;

Or if thou wilt I live, then pity pleadeth

Help out of thee, since nature hath revealed.
That with thy tongue thy bitings may be healed.

* Thy?

30 CiELICA

III

More than most fair, full of that heavenly fii'e.
Kindled above to show the Maker's glory.
Beauty's first-bom, in whom all powers conspire
To write the Graces' life and Muses' story,
If in my heart all saints else be defaced.
Honour the shrine where you alone are placed !

Thou window of the sky, and pride of spirits.
True character of honour in perfection,
Thou heavenly creature, judge of earthly merits.
And glorious prison of man's pure affection.
If in my heart all n3'mphs else be defaced.
Honour the shrine where you alone are placed !

C.ELI C A 31

You little stars that live in skies.
And gloiy in Apollo's glory.
In whose aspects conjoined lies.
The heaven's will and nature's story,
Joy to be likened to those eyes.
Which eyes make all eyes glad or sorry.
For when you force thoughts from above.
These over-nde your force by love.

And thou, O love, which in these eyes
Hast married reason with affection.
And made them saints of beauty's skies,
Where joys are shadows of perfection.
Lend me thy wings that I may rise
Up not by worth but thy election ;

For I have vowed in strangest fashion,
To love and never seek compassion.

32 CiELICA

Who trusts for trust, or hopes of love for love,

Or who beloved in Cupid's laws doth glory ;

Who joys in vows, or vows not to remove ;

Who by this light god hath not been made sorry, —
Let him see me eclipsed from my sun.
With shadows of an earth quite over-run.

Who thinks that sorrow's felt desires hidden.
Or humble faith with constant honour armed.
Can keep love from the fruit that is forbidden.
Change I do mean by no faith to be charmed,
Looking on me, let him know, love's delights
Are treasures hid in caves, but kept with
sprites.

C^LICA 33

VI

Eyes, why did you bring unto me those graces.
Graced to yield wonder out of her true measure.
Measure of all joys, stay to fancy traces,
Module of pleasure.

Reason is now grown a disease in reason.
Thoughts knit upon thoughts free alone to wonder.
Sense is a spy, made to do fancy treason.
Love go I under.

Since then eyes' pleasure to my thoughts betray

me,
And my thoughts reason's level have defaced.
So that all my powers to be hers obey me.
Love, be thou graced.

Graced by me. Love .'' no, by her that owes me,
She that an angel's spirit hath retained
In Cupid's fair sky, which her beauty shows me ;
Thus have I gained.

34 C ^ L I C A

VII

The world that all contains, is ever moving.
The stars within their spheres forever turned.
Nature the queen of change to change is loving.
And form to matter new is still adjourned ;

Fortune, our fancy-god, to vary liketh.
Place is not bound to things within it placed.
The present time upon time passed striketh,
With Phoebus wand'ring course the earth is
graced ;

The air still moves, and by its moving cleareth.
The fire up ascends and planets feedeth.
The water passeth on and all lets weareth.
The earth stands still yet change of changes
breedeth ;

Her plants which summer ripes,»in winter fade.
Each creature in unconstant mother lieth,
Man made of earth and for whom earth is made,
Still dying lives and living ever dieth :
Only like fate sweet Myra never varies,
Yet in her eyes the doom of all change carries.

CiELICA 35

Self-pity's tears wherein my hope lies drowned,
Sighs from thoughts' fire where my desires lan-
guish,
Despair by humble love of beauty crowned.
Furrows not worn by time but wheels of anguish ;
Dry up, smile, joy, make smooth, and see
Furrows, despairs, sighs, tears, in beauty be.

Beauty out of whose clouds my heart tears rained.
Beauty whose niggard fire sighs' smoke did
nourish.
Beauty in whose eclipse despairs remained.
Beauty whose scorching beams make wrinkles
flourish ;
Time hath made free of tears, sighs, and

despair.
Writing in furrows deep, "she once was fair."

36 C ^ L I C A

O Love, thou mortal sphere of powers divine.
The paradise of nature in perfection,
What makes thee thus thy kingdom undermine.
Veiling thy glories under woe's reflection ?
Tyranny counsel out of fear doth borrow.
To think her kingdom safe in fear and sorrow.

If I by nature, wonder and delight.
Had not sworn all my powers to worship thee.
Justly mine own revenge receive I might.
And see thee, tyrant, suffer tyranny ;

See thee thy self-despair and sorrow breeding.
Under the wounds of woe and sorrow bleeding.

For sorrow holds man's life to be her own.

His thoughts her stage where tragedies she plays.

Her orb she makes his reason overthrown.

His love foundations for her ruins lays ;

So as while love will torments of her borrow.
Love shall become the very love of sorrow.

C.ELICA 37

Love, therefore speak to Caelica for mC;

Show her thyself in every thing I do ;

Safely thy powers she * may in others see,

And in thy power she her glories too ;
Move her to pity, stay her from disdain.
Let never man love worthiness in vain !

* Evidently for "see."

38 C^LICA

Love, of man's wand'ring thoughts the restless

being.
Thou from my mind with glory wast invited,
Glorj' of those fair eyes, where all eyes, seeing
Virtue's and beauty's riches, are delighted ;
What angel's pride, or what self-disagreeing.
What dazzling brightness hath your beams be-
nighted.
That fall'n thus from those joys which you

aspired,
Down to my darkened mind you are retired ?

Within which mind since you from thence

ascended.
Truth clouds itself, wit serves but to resemble.
Envy is king, at others good offended.
Memory doth worlds of wretchedness assemble.
Passion to ruin passion is intended,
My reason is but power to dissemble ;

Tlien tell me. Love, what glorj' you divine.
Yourself can find within this soul of mine ?

C .^ L I C A 39

Rather go back unto that heavenly quire
Of nature's riches in her beauties placed.
And there in contemplation feed desire.
Which, till it wonder, is not rightly graced ;
For those sweet glories which you do aspire.
Must as ideas only be embraced.

Since excellence in other form enjoyed.
Is by descending to her saints destroyed.

40 C^LICA

JuNOj that on her head love's livery carried,
Scorning to wear the marks of Id's pleasure.
Knew while the boy in equinoctial tarried,
His heats would rob the heaven of heavenly

treasure ;
Beyond the tropics she the boy doth banish,
Where smokes must warm before his fire do

blaze.
And children's thouglits not instantly grow

mannish.
Fear keeping lust there very long at gaze ;
But see hoAv that poor goddess was deceived !
For women's hearts far colder there than ice,
When once the fire of lust they have received,
With two extremes so multiply the vice,
As neither party satisfying other,
Repentance still becomes desire's mother.

C^LICA 41

XII

Cupid, thou naughty boy, when thou wert loathed.
Naked and blind, for vagabonding noted.
Thy nakedness I in my reason clothed.
Mine eyes I gave thee, so was I devoted.

Fie, wanton, fie ! who would show children kind-
ness ?

No sooner he into mine eyes was gotten.

But straight he clouds them with a seeing blind-
ness.

Makes reason wish that reason were forgotten.

From thence to Mira's eyes the wanton strayeth.
Where while I charge him with ungrateful

measure.
So with fair wonders he mine eyes betrayeth,
That my wounds and his wrongs become my
pleasure ;
Till for more spite to Myra's heart he flieth.
Where livincr to the world to me he dieth.

42 CiELICA

Cupid, his boy's play many times forbidden
By Venus, who thinks Mars' best manhood boyish.
While he shot all, still for not shooting chidden,
Weeps himself blind to see that sex so coyish.

And in this blindness wand'reth many places.
Till his foe absence hath him prisoner gotten,
Who breaks his arrows, bow and wings defaces.
Keeps him till he his boy's play hath forgotten.

Then lets him loose, no god of years but hours.
Cures and restores him all things but his blind-
ness.
Forbids him nothing but the constant powers.
Where absence never can have power of kindness.
Ladies, this blind boy that ran from his mother.
Will ever play the wag with one or other.

CJELICA 43

XIV

Why, how now. Reason, how are you amazed ?
Is worth in beauty shrined up to be clothed ?
Shall nature's riches by yourself be razed ?
In what but these can you be finely clothed ? *

Though Myra's eyes, glasses of joy and smart.
Daintily shadowed, show forth love and fear.
Shall fear make reason from her right depart ?
Shall lack of hope the love of worth forbear ?

Where is the homage then that natui'e oweth ?
Love is a tribute to perfection due.
Reason in self-love's-livery bondage showeth.
And hath no freedom, Myra, but in you ;

Then worth, love, reason, beauty, be content

In Myra only to be permanent.

* The MS. at Warwick has "loth'd."

44 C .E L 1 C A

When gentle beauty's over-wanton kindness,
Had given love the liberty of playing.
Change brought his eyesight by-and-by to blind-
ness.
Still hatching in excess her own decayuig ;
Then cut I self-love's wings to lend him feathers.
Gave him mme eyes to see in Myra's glory.
Honour and beauty reconciled togethers.
Of love the birth, the fatal tomb and story.
Ah wag ! no sooner he that sphere had gotten.
But out of Myra's eyes my eyes he woundeth ;
And but his boy's play having all forgotten.
His heat in her chaste coldness so confoundeth.

As he that burns must freeze, who trusts must
fear

Ill-quartered coats which yet all lovers bear.

CiELICA 45

XVI

Fie, foolish earth, think you the heaven wants

glory,
Because your shadows do yourself benight ?
All's dark unto the blind ; let them be sorry ;
The heavens in themselves are ever bright.

Fie, fond desire, think you that love wants glory.
Because your shadows do yourself benight ?
The hopes and fears of lust may make men sorry.
But love still in herself finds her delight.

Then earth, stand fast ; the sky that you benight
Will turn again and so restore your glory ;
Desire, be steady ; hope is your delight,
An orb wherein no creature can be sorry,

Love being placed above these middle regions.
Where every passion wars itself with legions.

46 C-^LICA

C"VNTHiA, whose glories are at full for ever.
Whose beauties draw forth tears and kindle fires.
Fires which kindled once are quenched never.
So beyond hope your worth bears up desires !

Why cast you clouds on your sweet looking eyes ?
Are you afraid they show me too much pleasure ?
Strong nature decks the grave wherein it lies.
Excellence can never be expressed in measure.

Are you afraid because my heart adores you,
The world will think I hold Endymion's place ?
Hippolj'tus, sweet Cynthia, kneeled before you,
Yet did you not come down to kiss his face.

Angels enjoy the heavens' inward quires ;

Star-gazers only multiply desires.

CiELICA 47

I OFFER wrong to my beloved saint,
I scorn, I change, I falsify my love;
Absence and time have made my homage faint,
With Cupid I do eveiywhere remove.

I sigh, I sorrow, I do play the fool.
Mine eyes like weather-cocks on her attend ;
Zeal thus on either side she puts to school.
That will needs have inconstancy to friend.

I grudge, she saith, that many should adore her.

Where love doth suffer and think all things meet;

She saith all selfness must fall down before her ;

I say, where is the sauce should make that sweet .''
Change and contempt, you know, ill speakers be,
Caelica, and such are all your thoughts of me.

48 C^ L I C A

Ah silly Cupid, do you make it coy
To keep your seat in Gala's furrowed face ?
Think in her beauty what you did enjoy.
And do not sers'ice done you so disgrace.

She that refused not any shaft you shot.
Lent dews to youth and sparks to old desire ;
If such flat homage be so soon forgot,
Many good fellows will be out of hire.

Good archers ever have two bows at least.
With beauty faded shoot the elder sort ;
For though all be not to shoot at the best.
Yet archers with their butting-bows make sport.
The glory that men in good kingdoms see,
Is when both young and old in traffic be.

CiELICA 49

XX

Why, how now Cupid, do you covet change ?
And from a stealer to a keeper's state
With barking dogs do you the coverts range.
That carried bread to still them but of late ?

What shall we do that with your bow are wounded.
Your bow which blindeth each thing it doth hit.
Since fear and lust in you are so confounded
As your hot fire bears water still in it ?

Play not the fool, for though your dogs be good.
Hardy, loud, earnest, and of little sleep,
Yet mad desires with cries are not ■withstood.
They must be better armed that mean to keep ;
And since unweaponed care makes men forlorn.
Let me first make your dog an unicorn.

50 CiELICA

Satan, no woman, yet a wand'ring spirit,
When he saw ships sail two ways with one wind.
Of sailor's trade he hell did disinherit :
The devil himself loves not a half-fast mind.

The satyr when he saw the shepherd blow
To warm his hands and make his pottage cool,
Manhood forswears, and half a beast did know ;
Nature with double breath is put to school.

Cupid doth head his shafts in women's faces.
Where smiles and tears dwell ever near together.
Where all the arts of change give passion graces ;
While these clouds threaten, who fears not the
weather ?
Sailors and satyrs, Cupid's knights and I,
Fear women that swear nay, and know they lie.

CiELICA 51

I WITH whose colours Myra dressed her head,
I that wore posies of her own hand making,
I that mine own name in the chimneys read
By Myra finely wrought ere I was waking ;
Must I look on in hope time coming may
With change bring back my turn again to play ?

I that on Sunday at the church-stile found
A garland sweet with true-love knots in flowers,
Which I to w'ear about mine arm was bound.
That each of us might knoAV that all was ours ;
Must I now lead an idle life in wishes.
And follow Cupid for his loaves and fishes ?

I that did wear the ring her mother left,
I for whose love she gloried to be blamed,
I with whose eyes her eyes committed theft,
I who did make her blush when I was named ;

Must I lose ring, flowers, blush, theft and go
naked.

Watching with sighs till dead love be awaked ?

52 C^LICA

I that when drowsy Argus fell asleep,

Like jealousy o'er-watched with desire,

Was even warned modesty to keep,

WTiile her breath speaking kindled nature's fire ;

Must I look on a-cold while others warm them ?

Do Vulcan's brothers in such fine nets arm
them ?

Was it for this that I might Myra see,
Washing the water with her beauties white ?
Yet would she never write her love to me ;
Thinks wit of change while thoughts are in
delight ?

Mad girls must safely love as they may leave ;

No man can print a kiss ; lines may deceive.

C .E L I C A 53

Merlin, they say, an English prophet born.
When he was young and governed by his mother.
Took great delight to laugh such fools to scorn,
As thought by nature we might know a brother.

His mother chid him oft, till on a day
They stood and saw a corpse to burial carried ;
The father tears his beard, doth weep and pray ;
The mother was the woman he had married.

Merlin laughs out aloud instead of crying ;

His mother chides him for that childish fashion ;

Says men must mourn the dead, themselves are

dying ;
Good manners doth make answer unto passion.

The child, for children see what should be

hidden.
Replies unto his mother by-and-by,
" Mother, if you did know and were forbidden.
Yet you would laugh as heartily as I.

54> CiELICA

This man no part hath in the child he sorrows,
His father was the monk that sings before him.
See then how nature of adoption bon'ows,
Truth covets in me that I should restore him.
True fathers singing, supposed fathers crying,
I think make wom.en laugh that lie a-dymg."

C.ELICA 55

XXIV

Painting, the eloquence of dumb conceit.
When it would figure forth confused passion,
Having no tables for the world's receipt.
With few parts of a few doth many fashion.
Who then would figure worthiness disgraced.
Nature and wit imprisoned, or starved.
Kindness a scorn, and courtesy defaced.
If he do well paint want, hath well desei^ved.
But who his art in worlds of woe would prove.
Let him within his heart but cipher love.

56 CiELICA

Cupid, my pretty boy, leave off thy ciying.
Thou shalt have bells or apples ; be not peevish ;
Kiss me, sweet lad ; beshrew her for denying ;
Such rude denials do make children thievish.

Did reason say that boys must be restrained ?
What was it ? Tell, hath cruel honour chidden ?
Or would they have thee from sweet Myra

weaned ?
Are her fair breasts made dainty to be hidden ?

Tell me, sweet boy, doth Myra's beauty threaten ?
Must you say grace when you would be a-play-

ing ?
Doth she cause thee make faults to make thee

beaten ?
Is beauty's pride in innocents betraying ?
Give me a bow, let me thy quiver borrow.
And she shall play the child with love or
sorrow.

CiELICA 57

Was ever man so over-matched with boy ?
When I am thinking how to keep him mider.
He plays and dallies me with every toy ;
With pretty stealths he makes me laugh and
wonder.

When with the child, the child-thoughts of mine
o^vn

Do long to play and toy as well as he ;
The boy is sad and melancholy grown.
And with one humour cannot long agree.

Straight do I scorn and bid the child away ;

The boy knows fury and soon showeth me

Caelica's sweet eyes where love and beauty play ;

Furj' turns into love of that I see.

If these mad changes do make children gods.
Women and children are not far at odds.

58 Ci£LICA

XXVII

Cupid, in Myra's fair bewitching eyes.
Where beauty shows the miracles of pleasure.
When thou lay'st bound for honour's sacrifice,
Sworn to thy hate, equality, and measure ;

With open hand thou offeredst me her heart,
Thy bow and arrows, if I would conspire
To ruin honour, with whose frozen art
She tyrannised thy kingdom of desire ;

I glad to dwell and reign in such perfections^
Gave thee my reason, memory, and sense.
In them to work thy mystical reflections.
Against which nature can have no defence ;
And wilt thou now to nourish my despair.
Both head and feather all thy shafts with fear ?

CiELICA 59

You faithless boy, persuade you me to reason ?
With virtue do you answer my affection.
Virtue, which you with Hvery and seizin
Have sold and changed out of your protection ?

When you lay flattering in sweet Myra's eyes,
And played the wanton both with worth and

pleasure.
In beauty's field you told me virtue dies,
Excess and infinite in love was measure.

I took your oath of dalliance and desire,
Myra did so inspire me with her graces ;
But like a wag that sets the straw on fire.
You running to do harm in other places.

Swear what is felt with hand or seen with eye.
As mortal must feel sickness, age and die.

60 CiELICA

XXIX

Faction that ever dwells
In courts where wit excels.

Hath set defiance ;
Fortune and love have sworn.
That they were never born

Of one alliance.

Cupid that doth aspire
To be god of desire.

Swears he gives laws ;
That where his arrows hit.
Some joy, some sorrow it ;

Fortune no cause.

Fortune swears weakest hearts,
The books of Cuj)id's arts

Turn with her wheel ;
Senses themselves shall prove.
Venture hath place in love

Ask them that feel.

CiELICA 61

This discord it begot
Atheists that honour not

Nature, thought good ;
Fortune shall ever dwell
In courts where wits excel ;

Love keep the wood.

Thus to the wood went I
With love to live and die ;

Fortune's forlorn ;
Experience of my youth
Thus makes me think the truth

In desert bom.

My saint is dear to me,
Myra herself is she.

She fair and true ;
Myra that knows to move
Passions of love with love ;

Fortune, adieu !

62 C^LICA

Rome, while thy senate governors did choose.
Your soldiers flourished, citizens were free.
Thy state by change of consuls did not lose,
They honoured were that served or ruled thee ;

But after thy proud legions gave thee laws.
That their bought voices empire did bestow.
Worthiness no more was of election cause.
Authority her owners did not know.

Sweet Myra, while good will your friends did

choose.
Passions were dainty, sweet desires free ;
By one friend marriage did no honour lose.
They were esteemed that served or rul^d thee ;

But after flatt'ring change did give thee laws.
That her false voices did thy faith bestow,
Worthiness no more was of affection cause,
Desire did many heads like monsters show ;
Thus Rome and Myra acting many parts.
By often changes lost commanding arts.

C^LICA 6S

XXXI

Good-fellows whom men commonly do call.
Those that do live at war \\'ith truth and shame.
If once to love of honesty they fall.
They both lose their good-fellows and theu* name ;

For thieves, whose riches rest in others' wealth.
Whose rents are spoils, and others' thrift their

gain,
When they grow bankrupts in the art of stealth,
Booties to their old fellows they remain.

Cupid, thou free of these good-fellows art ;

For while man cares not who, so he be one.

Thy wings, thy bow, thy arrows take his part ;

He neither lives, nor loves, nor hes alone ;
But be he once to Hymen's close yoke sworn.
Thou straight brav'st this good-fellow with the
horn.

64 CtELICA

XXXII

Heavens ! see how bringing up corrupts or betters ;
Cupid long prentice to his mother bound,
Hath taken oath only to scape her fetters,
That he will still like to herself be found ;

Which is fair in his youth, in old age painted.
Kind out of lust, and humble for his pleasure.
Not long agreeing with things well acquainted,
Covetous, yet prodigal of fame and treasure.

Now as they wrong themselves, that for it thunders
Blame sky or air wherein these tempests blow ;
So doth he that at women's changes wonders.
Since strange it should not be that all men know ;
Therefore if Myra change as others do,
Free her, but blame the son and mother too.

C^LICA 65

Cupid, thy folly blears sweet Myra's eyes.
For like the blind that upwards look for light,
Y"ou fix those fatal stars on fortune's skies,
As though such planets gave not fortune might.

Base boy, what heart will do him sacrifice
That wraps repentance in his greatest pleasure,
And his true servants under fortune ties,
As though his own coin were no current
treasure ?

Must Danae's lap be wet with golden showers.

Or through the seas must bulls Europa bear ?

Must Leda only serve the higher powers ?

Base changeUng boy, and wouldst thou have me
swear.
The well-known secrets of Astolpho's cup.
Not to disclose but with white wax seal up ?

66 CiELICA

The gods to show they joy not in offences,

Nor plague of human nature do desire.

When they have made their rods and whipped

our senses,
They throw the rods themselves into the fire.

Then Cupid, thou whom man hath made a god.
Be like thy fellow gods in weight and fashion.
And now my faults are punished, burn the rod
In fires blown with many-headed passion !

Thy rod is woi'th, in Myra's beauty placed,
Which like a sun hath power to burn another,
And though itself can no affections taste.
To be in all men else affection's mother.
Therefore if thou wilt prove thyself a god.
In thy sweet fires let me burn this fair rod.

C^LICA 67

Cupid, my little boy, come home again !
I do not blame thee for thy running hence.
Where thou found'st nothing but desire's pain.
Jealousy, with self-un worthiness, offence.

Alas, I cannot. Sir ; I am made lame ;

I light no sooner in sweet Myra's eyes.

Whence I thought joy and pleasure took their

name,
But my right wing of wanton passion dies.

And I, poor child, am here instead of play.
So whipped and scourged with modesty and truth
As having lost all hope to scape away,
I yet take pleasure to 'tice hither youth ;
That my school-fellows plagued as well as I
May not make merry when they hear mercy.

68 CiELICA

Kings that in youth like all things else are fine.
Have some who for their childish faults are

beaten ; '
When more years unto greater vice incline,
Some, whom the world doth* their errors

threaten ;

So Cupid, you who boast of prince's blood.
For women's princelike weaknesses ai-e blamed,
And common error, yet not understood.
Makes you for their new-fangleness defamed.

Poor women swear, they ignorant of harms.
With gentle minds perchance take easy motions ;
Sweet nature yielding to the pleasing chai-ms
Of man's false lust disguised with devotion ;

But which are worse ; kings ill or easily led ?

Schools of this truth are yet not brought a-bed.

* Perhaps " for " should be inserted.

CtELICA 69

-WXVII

A THIEF, risen early up to seek his prey,
Spieth a pretty boy whereas he lay.

Crying fast by a well ;

He wills him why to tell.
And swears to make him well, if that he may.

The pretty boy smileth and thanketh the man.
Told him that he hath fal'n his father's cane.

All of gold, in the deep.

Which loss did make him weep ;
Prayeth him counsel keep, help if he can.

The man not for conscience but only for hope,
Puts off his clothes, goes down by the rope,

Meaning to have the cup.

If he can get it up ;
He spills that steals a sup ; hast* loseth hope.
* Perhaps for " haste."

70 CiELICA

For while in the water the false fellow fought.
The pretty boy steals his cloak, well was he
taught ;

Wet comes the fellow up.

He cannot find the cup ;
His cloak is taken up ; falsehood is naught.

Little lad Cupid, by night and by day.
Wonted in beauty's face wanton to play.

Fast bound and prisoned lies

In Myra's stealing eyes.
Woefully whence he cries to run away.

I asked the boy, the boy telleth his cause ;
He saith that virtue seeks beauty's disgrace.

Virtue that grieves to find,

With what an humble mind.
Men are to beauty kind, and her deface.

Virtue thinks all this is long of my bow.
Which hiding her beauties do counterfeits show.

And beauty virtues arm

With such a modest charm.
As my shafts do no harm ; she can say ^'no."

C^LICA 71

I that was wont to make wisdom a toy.
Virtue a pastime, am now made a boy ;

I am thrown from the heart.

Banished is passion's art.
Neither may I depart nor yet enjoy.

This was the cause, he said, made him complain ;
He swears, if I help him, to help me again ;

And straightways offers me.

If virtue conquered be.
Beauty and pleasure free, joy without pain.

I glad, not for pity, but hope of the prize.
And proud of this language from Cselica's eyes.

Threw off my liberty.

Hoping that blessed I
Shall with sweet Cupid fly in beauty's skies.

But when in my heart I had pieced his bow.
And on the air of my thoughts made his wings go.

The little lad fears the rod,

He is not there a god,
I and delight are odd ; Myra says "no."

72 C^LICA

The flint keepeth fire, the lad he says true,
But fellows, it will not be kindled by you ;

He that takes stars with staves.

Yet hath not all he craves.
Love is not his that raves ; hope is untrue.

CiELICA IS

CiELicA, I overnight Avas finely used,
Lodged in the midst of paradise, your heart ;
Kind thoughts had charge I might not be refused.
Of every fruit and flower I had part.

But curious knowledge, blown with busy flame,*
The sweetest fruits had in down shadows hidden.
And for it found naine eyes had seen the same,
I from my paradise was straight forbidden ;

Where that cur, rumour, runs in every place.
Barking with care, begotten out of fear ;
And glassy honour, tender of disgrace.
Stands seraphin to see I come not there ;

While that fine soil, which all these joys did
yield,

By broken fence is proved a common field.

* The MS. has " fame."

74 C .E L I C A

XXXIX

The pride of flesh by reach of human wit
Did purpose once to over-reach the sky ;
And where before God drowned the world for it.
Yet Babylon it built up, not to die.

God knew these fools, how foolishly they

wrought.
That destiny with policy would break :
Straight none could tell his fellow what he

thought :
Their tongues were changed, and men not taught

to speak.

So I that heavenly peace would comprehend

In mortal seat of Caelica's fair heart.

To Babylon myself there did intend

With natural kindness and with passion's art;
But when I though* myself of herself free.
All's changed ; she understands all men but me.

* Evidently for "thought."

CiELICA 75

XL

The nurse-life wheat within his green husk

growing
Flatters our hope and tickles our desire ;
Nature's true riches in sweet beauty showing.
Which set all hearts with labour's love on fire.

No less fair is the wheat when golden care
Shows unto hope the joys of near enjoying ;
Fair and sweet is the bud, more sweet and fair
The rose which proves that time is not de-
stroying.

Ctelica, your youth, the morning of delight.
Enamelled o'er with beauties white and red.
All sense and thoughts did to belief invite.
That love and glory there are brought to bed ;

And your ripe years love none, he goes no
liigher.

Turns all the spirits of man into desire.

76 C ^ L I C A

Alas ! poor soul, think you to master love
With constant faith ? Do you hope true devotion
Can stay that godhead, which lives but to move
And turn men's hearts like vanes with outward
motion ?

No ! proud desire, thou run'st misfortune's way !
Love is to hers, like vessels made of glass,
Delightful while they do not fall away.
But broken, never brought to that it was.

When honour's audit calls for thy receipt,
And chargeth on thy head much time misspent ;
Nature corrupted by thy vain conceit,
Thy reason servile, poor, and passion rent ;

WTiat shall be thy excuse, what canst thou say ?
That thou hast erred out of love and wonder ?
No heretic, thou, Cupid, dost betray
And with religion wouldst bring princes under.

CiELICA

By merit banish chance from beauty's sky,
Set other laws in women's hearts than will ;
Cut change's wings that she no more may fly.
Hoping to make that constant which is ill ;

Therefore the doom is, wherein thou must rest,
Myra that scorns thee, shall love many best.

CtELICA

Pelius, that loth was Thetis to forsake.
Had counsel from the gods to hold her fast,
Forewarned what loathsome likeness she would

take.
Yet, if he held, come to herself at last.

He held ; the snakes, the serpents, and the fire.
No monsters proud, but travels of desire.

When I beheld how Caelica's fair eyes,
Did show her heart to some, her Mit to me ,
Change that doth prove the error, is not wise.
In her mishap made me strange visions see ;
Desire held fast, till love's unconstant zone.
Like Gorgon's head transformed her heart to
stone

From stone she turns again into a cloud.

Where water still had more power than the fire,

And I poor Ixion to my Juno vowed

With thoughts to clip her, clipped my own
desire ;
For she was vanished, I held nothing fast.
But woes to come and joys already past.

C ^ L I C A 79

This cloud straight makes a stream, in whose

smooth face.
While I the image of myself did glass,
Thought-shadows I for beauty did embrace.
Till stream and all except the cold did pass ;
Yet faith held fast like foils where stones be set,
To make toys dear and fools more fond to get.

Thus our desires beside each inward throw,
Must pass the outward toils of chance and fear ;
Against the streams of real truths they go.
With hope alone to balance all they bear.

Spending the wealth of nature in such fashion,
As good and ill luck equally breeds passion.

Thus our delights like fair shapes in a glass
Though pleasing to our senses cannot last ;
The metal breaks or else the visions pass ;
Only our griefs in constant moulds are cast ;

I'll hold no more ; false Caelica, live free ;

Seem fair to all the world and foul to me.

80 CiELICA

CiELicAj when you look down into your heart.
And see what wrongs my faith endureth there.
Hearing the groans of true love, loth to part,
You think they witness of your changes bear.

And as the man that by ill neighbours dwells.
Whose curious eyes discern those works of shame.
Which busy rumour to the people tells,
SuflPers for seeing those dark springs of fame ;

So I because I cannot choose but know
How constantly you have forgotten me,
Because my faith doth like the sea-marks show.
And tell the strangers where the dangers be,
I, like the child whom nurse hath overthrown.
Not crying, yet am whipped, if you be known.

CiELICA 81

The golden age was Avhen the world was young,
Nature so rich as earth did need no sowing.
Malice not known, the serpents had not stung.
Wit was but sweet affection's overflowing.

Desire was free, and beauties first-begotten ;
Beauty then neither net nor made by art ;
Words out of thoughts brought forth and not

forgotten,
The laws were inward that did rule the heart.

The brazen age is now when earth is worn.
Beauty grown sick, nature corrupt and nought.
Pleasure untimely dead as soon as bom.
Both Avords and kindness strangers to our
thoughts.

If not this changing world do change her head,
Calica, what have her new lords for to boast .''
The old lord knows desire is poorly fed.
And sorrows not a wavering province lost.
Since in the gilt age Saturn ruled alone.
And in this painted, planets every one.

F

82 C^LICA

Absence, the noble truce

Of Cupid's war.

Where though desires want use.

They honoured are ;

Thou art the just protection

Of prodigal affection.

Have thou the praise ;

When bankrupt Cupid braveth.

Thy mines his credit saveth

With sweet delays.

Of wounds which presence makes

With beauty's shot.

Absence the anguish slakes.

But healeth not ;

Absence records the stories

Wherein desire glories ;

Although she bum.

She cherisheth the spirits

Where constancy inherits

And passions mourn.

C ^ L I C A 8S:

Absence, like dainty clouds
On glorious-bright.
Nature's weak senses shrouds
From harming light.
Absence maintains the treasure
Of pleasure unto pleasure,
Sparing with praise ;
Absence doth nurse the fire
Which starves and feeds desire
With sweet delays.

Presence to every part

Of beauty ties ;

Where wonder rules the heart,

There pleasure dies.

Pleasures * plagues mind and senses

With modesty's defences ;

Absence is free.

Thoughts do in absence venture

On Cupid's shadowed centre ;

They wink and see.

* The MS. has " Presence."

84 C^LICA

But thoughts be not so brave

With absent joy ;

For you vith that you have

Yourself destroy ;

The absence which you glory.

Is that which makes you sorry.

And burn in vain ;

For thought is not the weapon

Wherewith thought's ease men cheapen;

Absence is jiain.

C ^ L 1 C A 85

Patience, weak fortuned, and weak-minded wit.
Persuade you nie to joy when I am banished ?
Why preach you time to come and joys with it.
Since time already come my joys hath vanished ?

Give me sweet Cynthia with my wonted bliss.
Disperse the clouds that coffer up my treasure,
Awake Endymion with Diana's kiss.
And then, sweet patience, counsel me to measure !!

But while my love feels nothing but correction.
While carelessness o'ershadows my devotion,
While Myra's beams show rival-like reflection,
The life of patience then must be commotion ;
Since not to feel what wrong I bear in this>
A senseless state and no true patience is.

86 CiELICA

Atlas upon his shoulders bare the sky,
The load was heavy but the load was fair ;
His sense was ravished with the melody
Made from the motion of the highest sphere

Not Atlas 1, nor did I heaven bear :
Caelica, 'tis true, once on my shoulder sate
Her eyes more rich by many characts were
Than stars or planets which men wonder at.

Atlas bare heaven, such burdens be of grace ;

Caehca, in heaven is the angels' place.

CiELICA 87

XLVIII

Mankind whose lives from hour to hour decay,
Lest sudden change himself should make himi"ear,
For if his black head instantly waxed grey,
Do you not think man would himself forswear ?

Caelica, who overnight spake with her eyes,
" My love complains that it can love no more,"
Showing me shame that languisheth and dies,
Tyrannised by love, it tyrannised before ;

If on the next day Cynthia change and leave.
Would you trust your eyes since her eyes
deceive ?

88 C^LICA

Princes who have, they say, no mind but thouglit.
Whose virtue is their pleasure and their end.
That kindness which in their hearts never

wrought.
They like in others and will praise a friend ;

Cupid who, people say, is bold with blindness.
Free of excess and enemy to measure.
Yet glories in the reverence of kindness.
In silent-trembling eloquence hath pleasure ;

Princes we comprehend and can delight.
We praise them for the good they never had ;
But Cupid's ways are far more infinite.
Kisses at times and curt'sies make him glad.
Then, Myra, give me leave for Cupid's sake.
To kiss thee oft that I may curt'sy make.

C^ELICA 89

ScoGGiN his wife by chance mistook her bed ;
Such chances oft befall poor women-kind ;
Alas poor souls, for when they miss their head.
What marvel it is though the rest be blind ?

This bed it was a lord's bed where she light.
Who nobly pitying this poor woman's hap.
Gave alms both to relieve and to delight,
And made the golden shower fall on her lap.

Then in a freedom asks her as they lay,

Whose were her lips and breasts, and she swore
his,

For hearts are open when thoughts fall to play.

At last he asks her whose her backside is ;
She vowed that it was Scoggin's only part.
Who never yet came nearer to her heart.

90 C ^ L I C A

Scoggin o'erheard ; but taught by common use,
That he who sees all those which do him liarm,
Or will in marriage boast such small abuse.
Shall never have his night-gown furred warm.
And was content since all was done in play,
To know his luck and bear his arms away.

Yet when his wife should to the market go.
Her breast and belly he in canvas dressed.
And on her backside fine silk did bestow.
Joying to see it braver than the rest.

His neighbours asked him why, and Scoggin

swore
That part of all his wife was only his ;
The lord should deck the rest to whom they are.
For he knew not what lordly fashion is. —
If husbands now should only deck their own,
Silk would make many by their backs be
known.

C^LICA 91

LI

C^LicA, because we now in absence live.
Which lived so long in freeborn love at one,
Straight curious rumour doth her censure give.
That our aspects are to another zone.

Yet Caelica, you know I do not change.
My heart bears witness that there is no cause ;
Authority may bid goodwill be strange.
But true desire is subject to no laws.
If I have spoken to the common sense.
It envy kills and is a wise offence.

92 C.EL1CA

Away with these self-loving lads,

Whom Cupid's arrow never glads !

Away, poor souls that sigh and weep.

In love of those that lie asleep !
For Cupid is a meadow-god.
And forceth none to kiss the rod.

Sweet Cupid's shafts like destiny

Do causeless good or ill decree ;

Desert is born out of his bow.

Reward upon his wing doth go ;

What fools are they that have not known.
That love likes no laws but his own !

My songs they be of Cynthia's praise,
I wear her rings on holidays.
In every tree I write her name.
And every day I read the same.

Where honour Cupid's rival is

There miracles are seen of his.

C ^ L I C A 93

If Cynthia crave her ring of me,
I blot her name out of the tree ;
If doubt do darken things held dear.
Then well-fare nothing once a year ;
For many run but one must Avin,
Fools only hedge the cuckoo in.

The worth that worthiness should move,
Is love ; that is the bow of love ;
And love as well the foster can.
As can the mighty nobleman.

Sweet saint, 'tis true you worthy be.

Yet without love nought worth to me.

94. C ^ L I C A

But that familiar things are never wonder^
What greater beauty than the heavens' glories ?
Where Phcebus shines, and when he is gone under,
Leaveth in fairest stars man's fatal stories ;
Yet Venus choose with Mars the netty bed
Before that heavenly life which Vulcan led.

Who doth entreat the winter not to rain,

Or in a stomn the wind to leave his blowing ?

Ladies, show you how Juno did complain

Of Jupiter unto Europa going.

Fair nymphs, if I woo Cynthia not to leave me.
You know 'tis I myself, not she deceives me.

Masters that ask their scholars' leave to beat them,
Husbands that bid their wives tell all they know.
Men that give children sweetmeats not to eat

them, —
Ladies, you see what destiny they go ;

And who entreats, you know entreats in vain.
That love be constant or come back again.

C iE L I C A 95

LIV

Light, rage and grief, limbs of uiiperfect love,

By over-acting ever lose their ends ;

For grief while it would good affection move,

With self-affliction doth deface her friends ;
Putting on poor weak pity's pale reflexion,
Whereas good-will is stirred with good com-
plexion.

Rage again fond of her inflamed desire.
Desire which conquers by close * invasion.
Forgetting light and heat live in one fire,
So overblows the temper of occasion.

That scorched with heat, by light discovered.
Untimely bom is and untimely dead.

Poor fools, why strive you then since all hearts feel
That idle chance so governs in affection.
As Cupid cannot turn his fatal wheel.
Nor in his own orb banish her election ?

Then teach desire hope ; not rage, fear, grief.
Powers as unapt to take, as give relief.

* The MS. originally had " concealed."

96 C.ELICA

CvNTHiA, because your horns look diverse ways.
Now darkened to the east, now to the west.

Then at full-glory once in thirty da3's.

Sense doth believe that cliange is nature's rest.

Poor earth, that dare presume to judge the sky !

Cynthia is ever round and never varies ;
Shadows and distance do abuse the eye.
And in abused sense truth oft miscarries ;
Yet who this language to the people speaks,
Opinion's empire sense's idol breaks.

C .E L I C A 9T

LVI

All my senses like beacon's flame.
Gave alarum to desire
To take arms in Cynthia's name.
And set all my thoughts on fire ;
Furies' wit persuaded me,
Happy love was hazard's hire,*
Cupid did best shoot and see
In the night where smooth is fair ;.
Up I start beheving well
To see if Cynthia were awake,
Wondei*s I saw, who can tell ?
And thus unto myself I spake :
Sweet god Cupid, where am I,
That by pale Diana's light.
Such rich beauties do espy
As harm our senses with delight ?
Am I borne up to the skies ?
See where Jove and Venus shine,
Showing in her heavenly eyes
That desire is divine !

* The MS. has "heir."

98 C .E L I C A

Look where lies the milky way,

Way unto that dainty throne.

Where while all the gods would play,

Vulcan thinks to dwell alone,

* Shadowing it with curious art,

Nets of sullen golden hair ;

Mars am I and may not part,

Till that I be taken there.

Therewithal I heard a sound

Made of all the parts of love

Which did fierce delight and wound ;

Planets with such music move,

Those joys drew desires near ;

The heavens blushed, the white showed red,

Such red as in skies appear

When Sol parts from Thetis' bed.

Thus unto myself I said,

Surely I Apollo am ;

Yonder is the glorious maid

Which men do Aurora name,

Who for pride she hath in me

Blushing forth desire and fear

* The following twenty-four lines are from the
Warwick MS.

X

C.^LICA 99

While she would have no man see
Makes the world know I am there.
I resolve to play the sun^
And misguide my chariot fire.
And the sky to overcome
And enflame with my desire.
I gave reins to this conceit,
Hope went on the wheel of lust ;
Fancy's scales are false of weight.
Thoughts take thought that go of trust.
I stepped forth to touch the sky,
I a god by Cupid dreams ;
Cynthia who did naked lie.
Rims away like silver streams.
Leaving hollow banks behind.
Who can neither forward move.
Nor if rivers be unkind.
Turn away or leave to love.
Thus stand I, like arctic pole,
Where Sol passeth o'er the line.
Mourning my benighted soul.
Which so loseth light divine.
There stand I like men that preach
From the execution place.

100 CiELICA

At their death content to teach
All the world with their disgrace.
He that lets his Cynthia lie
Naked on a bed of play.
To say prayers ere she die,
Teacheth time to run away ;
Let no love-desiring heart,
In the stars go seek his fate ;
Love is only nature's art,
Wonder hinders love and hate.
None can well behold his eyes.
But what underneath him lies.

C.ELI C A 101

CvELicA, you blame me that I sufFei' not
Absence with joy, authority with ease ;
Caelica, what powers can nature's inside blot ?
They must look pale without that feel disease.

You say that you do, like fair Tagus' streams.
Swell over those that would your channels choke.
Yielding due tribute unto Phcebus' beams.
Yet not made dry with loss of vapour's smoke.

Caelica, 'tis true, birds that do swim and fly.
The waters can endure to have and miss :
Their feet for seas, their wings are for the sky.
Nor error is it, that of nature is.

I, like the fish bequeathed to Neptune's bed.
No sooner taste of air but I am dead.

102 CiELICA

The tree in youth proud of his leaves and springs.

His body shadowed in his glory lays ;

For none do fly with art or others' wings,

But they in whom all save desire decays ;
Again in age when no leaves on them grow,
Then borrow they their green of mistletoe.

Where Ca;lica, when she was young and sweet.
Adorned her head with golden borrowed hair.
To hide her own for cold, she thinks it meet
The head should mourn, that all the rest was
fair ;
And now in age when outward things decay.
In spite of age she throws that hair away.

Those goltlen hairs she then used but to tie
Poor captive souls with she in triumj)h led.
Who not content the sun's fair light to eye.
Within his glory their sense dazzled ;

And now again her own black hair puts on.
To mourn for thoughts by her worths over-
thrown.

CiELICA 103

LIX

Whoever sails near to Bermuda coast.
Goes hard aboard the monarchy of fear,
Where all desires but life's desire are lost.
For wealth and fame put off their glories thei'e.

Yet this isle poison-like, by mischief known.
Weans not desire from her sweet nurse, the sea ;
But unseen shows us where our hopes be sown,
With woeful signs declaring joyful way.

For who will seek the wealth of western sun.
Oft by Bermuda's miseries must run.

Who seeks the god of love in beauty's sky,
Must pass the empire of confused passion.
Where our desires to all but horrors die.
Before that joy and peace can take their fashion.

Yet this fair heaven, that yields this soul de-
spair,
Weans not the heart from his sweet god, affec-
tion ;

;104 C.ELI C A

But rather shows us what sweet joys are there,
^IVhere constancy is servant to perfection.

Who Caelica's chaste heart then seeks to move,
Must joy to suffer all the woes of love.

C^LICA 105

LX

C.ELicA, you said, I do obscurely live,
Strange to my friends, with strangers in suspect,
For darkness doth suspicion ever give
Of hate to men or too much self-respect ;

Fame, you do say, -with many wings doth fly ;

Who leaves himself, you say, doth living die.

Caelica, 'tis true I do in darkness go,
Honour I seek not nor hunt after fame ;
I am thought-bound, I do not long to know,
I feel within what men ^vithout me blame ;

I scorn the world, the world scorns me, 'tis
true ;

What can a heart do more to honour you ?

Knowledge and fame in open hearts do live.
Honour is pure hearts' homage unto these ;
Affection all men imto beauty give,
And by that law enjoined are to please ;

The world in two I have divided fit ;

Myself to you, and all the rest to it.

IOC C.^LICA

LXI

CiELicAj while you do swear you love me best.

And ever loved only me,

I feel that all powers are oppressed

By love, and love by destiny.

For as the child in swaddling bands.
When it doth see the nurse come nigh,
With smiles and crows doth lift the hands.
Yet still must in the cradle lie ;
So in the boat of fate I row,
And looking to you, from you go.

When I see in thy once beloved brows.

The heavy marks of constant love,

I call to mind my broken voavs.

And child-like to the nurse would move ;

But love is of the phoenix-kind,

And burns itself in self-made fire,

To breed still new birds in the mind

From ashes of the old desire ;

And hath his wings from constancy.
As mountains called of moving be.

C^LICA 107

Then Caelica, lose not heart-eloquence.
Love understands not, come again ;
Who changes in her own defence
Needs not cry to the deaf in vain.

Love is no true-made looking-glass
Which perfect yields the shape we bring ;
It ugly shows us all that was.
And flatters every future thing.

When Phoebus' beams no more appear,

'Tis darker that the day was here.

Change, I confess it, is a hateful power,
To them that all at once must think.
Yet nature made both sweet and sour.
She gave the eye a lid to wink ;

And though the youth that are estranged
From mother's lap to others' skies,
Do think that nature there is changed
Because at home their knowledge lies ;
Yet shall they see who far have gone.
That pleasure speaks more tongues than one.

The leaves fall off when sap goes to the root.
The warmth doth clothe the bough again.

108 C.ELI C A

But to the dead tree what doth boot.
The silly man's manuring pain ?

Unkindness may piece up again.
But kindness either changed or dead,
Self-pity may in fools complain.
Put thou thy horns on others' head ;
For constant faith is made a drudge
But when requiting love is judge.

C.ELI C A 109

Who worships Cupid doth adore a boy ;
Boys' earnest are at first in then* dehght,
But for a new soon leave their dearest toy,
And out of mind as soon as out of sight ;

Their joys be dallyings and their wealth is play,
They cry to have and cry to cast away.

Mars is an idol, and man's lust his sky.
Whereby his glories still are full of wounds ;
Who worships him, their fame goes far and nigh.
But still of ruin and distress it sounds.

Yet cannot all be won, and who doth live
Must room to neighbours and succession give.

Those Mercurists that upon humours work.
And so make others' skill and power their own.
Are like the climates w^hich far northward lurk,
And through long winters must reap what is
sown ;
Or like the masons, whose art building well.
Yet leaves the house for other men to dwell.

no C^LICA

Mercury^ Cupidj Mars, they l^e no gods,

But human idols, built up by desire.

Fruit of our boughs, whence heaven maketh rods.

And babies too for child-thoughts that aspire ;

Who sees their glories, on the earth must pry ;

Who seeks true glory must look to the sky.

C^LICA 111

The greatest pride of human kind is wit,
Wliich all ai-t out and into method draws>
Yet infinite is far exceeding it,
And so is chance, of unknown things the cause ;

The feet of men against our feet do move ;

No wit can comprehend the ways of love.

He that direct on parallels doth sail.

Goes eastward out and eastward doth return ;

The shadowed man whom Phoebus' light doth

fail.
Is black like him, his heat doth overbum ;

The wheels of high desire with force do move ;

Nothing can fall amiss to them that love.

Vapours of earth which to the sun aspire,
As nature's tribute unto heat or light.
Are frozen in the midst of high desire.
And melted in sweet beams of self-delight ;
And who to fly with Cupid's wings will prove.
Must not bewail these many airs of love.

112 CiELICA

Men that do use the compass of the sea.
And see the needle over * northward look,
Some do the virtue in the loadstone lay,
Some say, the stone it from the north star took ;
And let him know that thinks with faith to

move,
They once had eyes that are made blind by
love.

* The MS. has " ever."

CiELICA ns

C^ELicA, when I did see you every day,

I saw so many worths so well united,

As in this union while but one did play,

All others eyes both wondered and delighted ;

Whence I conceived you of some heavenly mould,
Since love, and virtue, noble fame, and pleasure,
Contain in one no earthly metal could.
Such enemies are flesh and blood to measure.

And since my fall though I now only see
Your back while all the world beholds your face,
This shadow still shows miracles to me.
And still I think your heart a heavenly place ;
For what before was filled by me alone,
I now discern hath room for everv one.

114. C-ELICA

C.5!LicA, when I Avas from your presence bound,
At first goodwill both sorrowed and repined ;
Love, faith, and nature felt restraint a wound.
Honour itself to kindness yet inclined ;

Your vows one way with your desires did go.
Self-pity then in you did pity me.
Yea, sex did scorn to be imprisoned so ;
But fire goes out for lack of vent we see.

For when with time desire had made a truce,
I only was exempt, the world left free ;
Yet Avhat win you by bringing change in use,
But to make current infidelity ?

Caelicia, you say you love me, but you fear ;

Then hide me in your heart and keep me there.

C^LICA 115

C.CLicA, you whose requests commandments be.
Advise me to delight my mind with books.
The glass where art doth to posterity,
Show nature naked unto him that looks.
Enriching us, shortening the ways of wit.
Which with experience else dear buyeth it.

Caelica, if I obey not but dispute.

Think it is darkness which seeks out a light.

And to presumption do not it impute.

If I forsake this way of infinite ;

Books be of men, men but in clouds do see,
Of whose embracements centaurs gotten be.

I have for books, above my head the skies.
Under me earth, about me air and sea.
The truth for light, and reason for mine eyes.
Honour for guide, and nature for my way ;

With change of times, laws, humours, manners,
right;

Each in their diverse workings infinite.

U6 C^LICA

Which powers from that we feel, conceive, or do.
Raise in our senses through * joy or smarts.
All forms the good or ill can bring us to,
More lively far than can dead books or arts,
Which at the second hand deliver forth
Of few men's heads sti-ange rules for all men's
worth.

False antidotes for vicious ignorance.
Whose causes are within and so their cure.
Error corrupting nature, not mischance, —
For how can that be wise which is not pure ? —
So that man being but mere hypocrisy.
What can his arts but beams of folly be ?

Let him then first set straight his inward sprite,t
That his affections in the J serving-rooms
May follow reason, not confound her light.
And make her subject to inferior dooms ;
For till the inward moulds be truly placed.
All is made crooked that in them we cast.

* The MS. has "thorough."
t Written " spirit."
+ The MS. has "their.

C .E L I C A 117

But when the heart, eyes' light grow pure to-
gether.
And so vice in the way to be forgot.
Which threw man from creation, who knows

whither ? —
Then this strange building which the flesh knows
not.
Revives a new-formed image in man's mind,
Where arts revealed ai*e miracles defined.

What then need half-fast helps of erring wit.
Methods, or books of vain humanity.
Which dazzle truth by representing it.
And so entail clouds to posterity ;

Since outward wisdom springs from truth
within,

W^hich all men feel or hear before they sin

118 C.ELICA

Unconstant thoughts where light desires do move.
With every object which sense to them shows,
Still ebbing from themselves to seas of love.
Like ill-led kings that conquer but to lose, —

With blood and pain these dearly purchase
shame.

Time blotting all things out but evil name.

The double heart that loveth itself best.
Yet can make self-love bear the name of friend.
Whose kindness only in his wit doth rest,
And can be all but truth to have his end,

Must one desire in many figures cast ;

Dissemblings then are known when they are
past.

The heart of man mis-seeking for the best.
Oft doubly or unconstantly must blot.
Between these two the misconceit doth rest,
Whether it ever were that lasteth not ;
Unconstancy and doubleness depart.
When man binds his desires to mend his heart

CiELICA 119

While that my heart an altar I did make
To sacrifice desire and taith to love.
The little boy his temples did forsake,
And would for me no bow nor arrow move.

Dues of disgrace my incense did depress ;

That heat went in, the heart burnt not the
less.

And as the man that sees his house oppressed
With fire, and part of his goods made a prey.
Yet doth pull down the roof to save the rest,
Till his loss give him light to run away ;
So when I saAv the bell on other sheep,
I hid myself ; but dreams vex them that sleep.

My exile was not like the barren tree.
Which bears his fruitless head up to the sky.
But like the trees whose bows o'erloaden be.
And with self riches bowed down to die :

When in the night with songs, not cries, I
moan.

Lest more should hear what I complain of one.

120 C^LICA

LXIX

When all this all doth pass from age to age.

And revolution in a circle turn,

Then heavenly justice doth appear like rage.

The caves do roar, the very seas do burn.
Glory grows dark, the sun becomes a night.
And makes this great world feel a greater
might.

When love doth change his seat from heart lo

heart.
And worth about the wheel of fortune goes,
Grace is diseased, desert seems overthwart,
Vows are forlorn, and truth doth credit lose ;
Chance then gives law, desire must be wise
And look more ways than one, or lose her eyes.

My age of joy is past, of woe begun,
Absence my presence is, strangeness my grace.
With them that walk against me is my sun ;
The wheel is turned, I hold the lowest place ;
What can be good to me since my love is.
To do me hann, content to do amiss ?

>

C.^LICA 121

LXX

CupiD did pine ; Venus that loved her son
Or lacked her sport, did look with heavy heart ;
The gods are called, a council is begun,
Delphos is sought and ^.sculapius' art.

Apollo saith love is a relative.
Whose being only must in others be ;
As bodies do their shadows keep alive,
So Eros must with Anteros agree ;

They found him out a mate with whom to play ;

Love straight enjoyed and pined no more away.

Caelica, this image figures forth my heart
Where Venus mourns and Cupid prospers not,
For this is my affections overthwart.
That I remember what you have forgot
And while in you myself I seek to find,
I see that you yourself have lost your mind.

122 C.^LICA

When I would joy as I was wont to do.

Your thoughts are changed and not the same to

me ;
My love that lacks her play-fellow in you.
Seeks up and down, but blinded cannot see.

The boy hath stolen your thoughts some other

way.
Where wantonlike they do with many play.

C.ELICA 123

LovEj I did send you forth enamelled fair
With hope, and gave you seizin and livery
Of beauty's sky, which you did claim as heir,
By objects' and desire's affinity.

And do you now return lean with despair,
Wounded with rival's war, scorched with

jealousy ?
Hence, changeling ! love doth no such colours

wear ;
Find sureties, or at honour's sessions die.

Sir, know me for your own ; I only bear
Faith's ensign, which is shame and misery ;
My paradise and Adam's diverse were ;
His fall was knowledge, mine simplicity.

What shall I do, sir ? do me prentice bind
To knowledge, honour, fame or honesty ;
Let me no longer follow womenkind.
Where change doth use all shapes of tyranny ;
And I no more will stir this earthly dust.
Wherein I lose my name to talk on lust.

124 C^LICA

CjELicAj you that excel in flesh and wit,

In whose sweet heart love doth both ebb and

flow,
Returning faith more than it took from it.
Whence doth the change the world thus speaks

If worthiness do joy to be admired,

My soul, you know, only be-wonders you ;

If beauty's glory be to be desired.

My heart is nothing else ; what need you new ?

If loving joy of worths beloved be

And joys not simple but still mutual.

Whom can you more love than you have loved

me ?
Unless in your heart there be more than all ;
Since love no doomsday hath where bodies

change,
Why should new be delight, not being strange?

CiELICA 125

Myraphill, 'tis true, I loved and you loved me.
My thoughts as narrow as my heart then were,
Which made change seem impossible to be,
Thinking one place could not two bodies bear.
This was but earnest youth's simplicity.
To fathom nature within passion's wit.
Which thinks her earnestness eternity.
Till self-delight makes change look thorough it ;
You banished were, I grieved, but languished

not.

For worth was free and of affection sure,

So that time must be vain or you forgot ;

Nature and love no vacuum can endure ;

I found desert and to desert am true,

Still dealing by it as I dealt by you.

126 C.^LICA

In the window of a grange,

Whence men's prospects cannot range

Over groves and flowers growing.

Nature's wealth and pleasure showing.

But on graves where shepherds lie.

That by love or sickness die ;

In that window saw I sit

Caelica adorning it.

Sadly clad for sorrow's glory.

Making joy glad to be sorry.

Showing sorrow in such fashion

As truth seemed in love with passion.

Such a sweet enamel giveth

Love restrained that constant liveth.

Absence that bred all this pain.

Presence healed not straight again ;

Eyes from dark to sudden light

See not straight nor can delight.

Where the heart revives from death,

Groans do first send forth a breath :

C.ELI C A 127

So first looks did looks beget.

One sigh did another fet ;

Hearts within their breast did quake.

While thoughts to each other spake.

Philocell entranced stood,

Racked and joyed -with his good.

His eyes on her eyes -svere fixed.

Where both true love and shame were mixed ;

In her eyes he pity saw.

His love did to pity draw ;

But love found when it came there,

Pity was transformed to fear ;

Then he thought that in her face

He saw love and promised grace.

Love calls his love to appear,

But as soon as it came near.

Her love to her bosom fled,

Under honour's burthens dead.

Honour in love's stead took place

To grace shame with love's disgrace ;

But like drops thrown on the fire.

Shame's restraints enflamed desire ;

Desire looks and in her eyes

The image of itself espies.

128 C.ELICA

Whence he takes self-pity's motions
To be Cynthia's own devotions.
And resolves fear is a liar.
Thinking she bids speak desire ;
But true love that fears, and dare
Offend itself with pleasing care.
So diverse ways his heart doth move.
That his tongue cannot speak of love ;
Only in himself he says.
How fatal are blind Cupid's ways ?

C.ELI C A 129

LXXV

Endymion's poor hap * it is,
That while love sleeps the heavens_^kiss ;
But silent love is simple wooing.
Even destiny would have us doing.
Boldness never yet was chidden,
Till by love it be forbidden ;
Myra leaves him, and knows best
What shall become of all the rest.

• The MS. has " hope."

130 CELICA

In the time when herbs and flowers.

Springing out of melting powers.

Teach the earth that heat and rain

Do make Cupid live again ;

Late when Sol, like great hearts, shows

Largest as he lowest goes,

Cgelica with Philocell

In fellowship together fell.

Cselica her skin was fair.

Dainty auburn Avas her hair ;

Her hair nature dyed brown

To become the morning gowTi

Of hope's death which to her eyes

Offers thoughts for sacrifice.

Philocell was true and kind,

Poor but not of poorest mind.

Though mischance to harm affected

Hides and holdeth worth suspected ;

He, good shepherd, lov^d well,

But Caelica scorned Philocell.

CiELICA 131

Through enamelled meads they went,
Quiet she, he passion rent.
Her worths to him hope did move ;
Her worths made him fear to love.
His heart sighs and fain would show
That which all the woi'ld did know ;
His heart sighed the sighs of fear,
And durst not tell her love was there ;
But as thoughts in troubled sleep
Dreaming fear and fearing weep.
When for help they fain would cry.
Cannot speak and helpless lie ;
So while his heart, full of pain,
Would itself in words complain,
Pain of all pains, lover's fear,
Makes his heart to silence SAvear.
Strife at length those dreams doth break.
His despair taught fear thus speak :
" Cjelica, what shall I say ?
You, to whom all passions pray,
Like poor flies that to the fire
Where they burn themselves, aspire ;
You, iu whose worth men do joy.
That hope never to enjoy ;

132 C.ELI C A

Where both grace and beauty's framed

That love being might be blamed ;

Can true worthiness be glad

To make hearts that love it sad ?

What means nature in her jewel.

To show mercy's image cruel ?

Dear, if ever in my days

My heart joyed in others' praise ;

If I of the world did borrow

Other ground for joy or sorrow ;

If I better wish to be

But the better to please thee :

I say, if this false be proved,

Let me not love or not be loved !

But when reason did invite

All my sense to fortune's light ;

If my love did make my reason

To itself for thyself treason ;

If when wisdom showed me

Time and thoughts both lost for thee ;

If those losses I did glory.

For 1 could not more lose, sorry ;

Caelica then do not scorn

Love, in humble humour bom.

CiELICA isy

Let not fortune have the power

Cupid's godhead to devour ;

For I hear the wise men tell,

Nature worketh oft as well

In those men whom chance disgraceth

As in those she higher placeth.

Caelica, 'tis near a god

To make even fortune's odd,

And of far more estimation

Is creator than creation.

Then, dear, though I worthless be,

Yet let them to you worthy be

Whose meek thoughts are highly graced

By your image in them placed."

Herewithal like one oppressed,
With self-burthens he did rest
Like amazed were his senses.
Both with pleasure and offences.
Caelica's cold answers show,
That which fools feel, wise men know;
How self-jiities have I'eflexion
Back into their owti infection ;
And that passions only move
Strings tuned to one note of love.

134 C.ELI C A

She thus answers him with reason.
Never to desire in season :
" Philocell, if you love me
For you would beloved be.
Your own will must be your hire.
And desire reward desire.
Cupid is in my heart sped.
Where all desires else are dead.
Ashes o'er love's flames are cast,
All for one is there disgraced.
Make not then your own mischance.
Wake yourself from passion's trance.
And let reason guide affection
From despair to new election."

Philocell that only felt
Destinies which Cupid dealt.
No laws but love-laws obeying,
Thought that gods were won with praying ;
And with heart fixed on her eyes.
Where love he thinks lives or dies.
His words, his heart with them leading.
Thus unto her dead love pleading :

" Caelica, if ever you
Lov^d have as others do.

C.^LICA 135

Let my present thoughts be glassed,
In the thoughts whicli you have passed.
Let self-pity which you know.
Frame true pity now in you ;
Let your forepast woe and glory,
Make you glad them you make sorry.
Love revengeth like a god.
When he beats he burns the rod ;
Who refuse alms to desire.
Die when drops would quench the fire.
But if you do feel again
What peace is in Cupid's pain.
Grant me, dear, your wished measure.
Pains, but pains that be of pleasure.
Find not these things strange in me.
Which within your heart we see ;
For true honour never blameth
Those that love her servants nameth.
But if your heart be so free.
As you would it seem to be,
Nature hath in free hearts placed
Pity for the poor disgraced."

His eyes great with child with tears^
Spies in her eyes many fears ;

1S6 CtELICA

Sees, he thinks, that sweetness vanish
Which all fears was M-ont to banish ;
Sees sweet love, there wont to play,
Armed and dressed to run away,
To her heart where she alone,
Scorneth all the world but one.
Cselica with clouded face.
Giving unto anger grace.
While she threatened him displeasure
Making anger look like pleasure.
Thus in fury to him spake
Words which make even hearts to quake
" Philocell, far from me get you,
Men are false, we cannot let you ;
Humble and yet full of pride,
Earnest and not to be denied ;
Now us for not loving blaming.
Now us for too much defaming ;
Though I let you posies bear.
Wherein my name cyphered were.
For 1 bid you in the tree
Cipher down your name by me,
For the bracelet pearl-like white.
Which you stale from me by night.

C/ELICA 137

I content was you should carry
Lest that you should longer tarry,
Think you that you might encroach
To set kindness more abroach ?
Think you me in friendship tied
So that nothing be denied ?
Do you think that I must live
Bound to that which you will give ?
Philocell, I say, depart !
Blot my love out of thy heart.
Cut my name out of the tree,
Bear not memory of me.
My delight is all my care.
All laws else despised are ;
I Avill never rumour move.
At least for one I do not love.

Shepherdesse,* if it prove
Philocell she once did love,
Can kind doubt of true affection
Merit such a sharp correction ?
When men see you fall away.
Must they wink to see no day ?
* Shepherdesses (?).

138 C.ELI C A

It is* worse in him that speaketh
Than in her that friendship breaketh ?
Shepherdesse,t when you change,
Is your fickleness so strange ?
Are you thus impatient still ?
Is your honour slave to will ?
They to whom you guilty be,
Must not they your error see ?
May true mai-tyrs at the fire
Not so much as life desire ?

Shepherdesses, yet mark well
The martyrdom of Philocell !
Rumour made his faith a scorn.
Him example of forlorn ;
Feeling he had of his woe.
Yet did love his overthrow ;
For that she knew love would bear.
She to wrong him did not fear ;
Jealousy of rival's grace
In his passion got a place ;
But love, lord of all his powers,
Doth so rule this heart of ours^

• Is'it (?). t Shepherdesses (?).

C^LICA 139

As for our beloved abuses

It doth ever find excuses.

Love tears reason's law in sunder,

Love is god, let reason wonder.

For nor scorns of his affection.

Nor despair in his election.

Nor his faith damned for obeying.

Nor her change his hopes betraying.

Can make Philocell remove.

But he CEclica will love.

Here my silly song is ended ;
Fair nymphs, be not you offended ;
For as men that travelled far.
By seen truths oft scorned are
By their neighbours' idle lives.
Who scarce know to please their wives ;
So though I have sung you more
Than your hearts have felt before.
Yet that faith in men doth dwell,
Who travels' constancy can tell ;

14,0 C^LICA

LXXVIT

Fortune, art thou not forced sometimes to scorn.
That seest ambition strive to change our state ?
As though thy sceptre slave to hist were bom,
Or wishes could procure themselves a fate !

1, when I have shot one shaft at my mother.
That her desires a-foot think all her own,
They straight draw up my bow to strike another.
For gods are best by discontentment known.

And when I see the poor forsaken sprite,*
Like sick men whom the doctor saith must die.
Sometime with rage and strength of passion fight.
Then languishing inquire what life might buy ;
I smile to see desire is never wise.
But wars with change, which is her paradise.

* Written " sp'rit."

CvELICA 141

LXXVIII

The heathen gods finite in power, wit, birth,
Yet worshipped for their good deeds to men.
At first kept stations between heaven and earth,
Ahke just to the castle and the den ;
Creation, merit, nature duly weighed.
And yet in show no rule but will obeyed ;

Till time and selfness, which turn worth to arts,
Love into compliments and things to thought.
Found out new circles to enthrall men's hearts
By laws ; wherein while thrones seems over-

^\TOUght,

Power finely hath surprised this faith of man,
And taxed his freedom at more than he can.

For to the sceptres judges' laws reserve
As well the practice as expounding sense.
From which no innocence can painless swerve.
They being engines of omnipotence ;

With equal shows then is not humble man
Here finely taxed at much more than he can ?

142 CtELICA

Our modem tyrants, by more gross ascent,
Although they found distinction in the state
Of church, law, custom, people's government,
Mediums at least to give excess a rate.
Yet fatally have tried to change his frame.
And make ^v^ll law, man's wholesome laws but
name.

But when power once hath trod this path of

might.
And found how place advantageously extended
Wanes, or confoundeth all inferior riglit
With thin lines hardly seen but never ended ;
It straight drowns in this gulf of vast affections.
Faith, truth, worth, law, all popular protections.

C.ELI C A 143

LXXIX

The little hearts, where light-winged passion

reigns,
More* easily upward as all frailties do ;
Like straws to jet, these follow princes' veins,
And so by pleasing do corrupt them too ;

Whence as their raising proves kings can

create,
So states prove sick where ^toys bear staple
rates, t

Like atomi they neither rest nor stand

Nor can erect ; because they nothing be

But baby-thoughts, fed with time-present's hand ;

Slaves and yet darlings of authority ;

Echoes of wrong, shadows of princes' might,
Which glow-worm like, by shining, show 'tis
night.

* Move (?). t The MS. has " rate."

144 C ^ L I C A

Curious of fame, as foul is to be fair ;

Caring to seem that which they would not be ;

Wherein chance helps, since praise is power's
heir.

Honour the creature of authority ;

So as bom high, in giddy orbs of grace.
These pictures are which are indeed but place.

And as the bird in hand, with freedom lost.
Serves for a stale his fellows to betray ;
So do these darlings raised at princes' cost
Tempt man to throw his liberty away ;
And sacrifice law, church, all real things.
To soar, not in his own, but eagles' wings ;

Whereby like iEsop's dog men lose their meat,

To bite at glorious shadows which they see ;

And let fall those strengths which make all states
great

By free truths changed to servile flattery ;

Whence while men gaze upon this blazing star.
Made slaves, not subjects, they to t)rrants are.

CtELICA 145

As when men see a blazing- star appear,
Each stirs up others' levity to wonder.
In restless thoughts holding those visions dear
WTiich threaten to rent government in sunder.
Yet be but horrors from vain hearts sent forth.
To prophecy against anointed worth ;

So likewise mankind when true goverament
Her great examples to the world brings forth.
Straight in the error's native discontent
Sees apparitions opposite to worth.

Which gathers such sense out of envy's beams
As still casts imputation on supi'emes.

146 CiELICA

Clear spirits, which in images set forth
The ways of nature by fine imitation.
Are oft forced to hyperboles of worth.
As oft again to monstrous declination ;

So that their heads must lined be like the sky

For all opinion's arts to traffic by.

Dull spirits again which love all constant grounds,.
As comely veils for their unactiveness,
Are oft forced to contract or stretch their bounds.
As active power spreads her beams more or less ;
For though in nature's wain these guests come

forth,
Can place or stamp make current ought but
worth ?

C.^LICA 147

Under a throne I saw a virgin sit,
The red and white rose quartered in her face,
Star of the north, and for true guards to it.
Princes, church, states, all pointing out her grace.
The homage done her was not born of wit,
Wisdom admired, zeal took ambitious place.
State in her eyes taught order how to sit.
And fix confusion's unobserving race.

Fortune can here claim nothing truly great,
But that this princely creature is her seat.

J48 CiELlCA

LXXXIII

You that seek what Hfe is in death,
Now find it air that once was breath ;
New names unknown, old names gone ;
Till time end bodies, but souls none.

Reader ! then make time, while you i)e.

But steps to your eternity.

C^LICA 149"

Who gTace for zenith had.

From which no shadows grow,
Who hath seen joy of all his hopes

And end of all his woe.
Whose love beloved hath been.

The crown of his desire.
Who hath seen sorrow's glories burnt

In sweet affection's fire, —
I f from this heavenly state

Which souls with souls unites.
He be fal'n down into the dark

Despaired war of sprites * ;
Let him lament with me,

For none doth glory know
That hath not been above himself

And thence fal'n down to woe.
But if there be one hope

Left in his languished heart,

">•" Written " sp'rits."

150 C^LICA

If fear of worse, if wish of ease,

If hoiTor may depart ;
He plays with his complaints,

He is no mate for me,
Whose love is lost, whose hopes are fled.

Whose fears for ever be.
Yet not those happy fears

Which show desire her death,
Teaching with use a peace in woe

And in despair a faith :
No, no, my fears kill not.

But make uncured wounds,
AVhere joy and peace do issue out.

And only pain abounds.
Unpossible are help,

Reward and hope to me.
Yet while unpossible they are.

They easy seem to be.
Most easy seems remorse.

Despair and deaths to me.
Yet while they passing easy seem,

Unpossible they be.
So neither can I leave

My hoj)es that do deceive

CiELICA 151

Nor can I trust mine own despair.

And nothing else receive.*
Thus be unhappy men

Blest to be more accurst ;
Near to the glories of the sun.

Clouds with most horror burst.
Like ghosts raised out of graves,

WTio live not though they go.
Whose walking fear to others is

And to themselves a woe ;
So is my life by her

Whose love to me is dead,
On whose worth my despair yet walks

And my desire is fed ;
I swallow down the bait

Which carries down my death ;
I cannot put love from my heart,

While life draws in my breath ;
My winter is A\-ithin

Which withereth my joy ;

* The MS. had for " And nothing else receive,"
originally "And to her passion cleave," changed to
*' Her dark decrees receive," and again to the form
in the text.

152 CiELICA

My knowledge^ seat of civil war.

Where friends and foes destroy ;
And my desires are wheels

Whereon my heart is born.
With endless turning of themselves,.

Still living to be torn.
My thoughts* are eagles' food,

Ordained to be a prey
To worth, and being still consumed.

Yet never to decay.
My memory, where once

My heart laid up the store
Of help, of joy, of spirit's w'ealth

To multiply them more.
Is now become the tomb

W^herein all these lie slain.
My help, my joy, my spii'it's wealth.

All sacrificed to pain.
In paradise I once

Did live and taste the tree
Which shadowed was from all the world,,

In joy to shadow me.

* The MS. has "hopes."

CtELICA 153

The tree hath lost his truit.

Or I have lost my seat ;
My soul both black with shadow is.

And over-burnt with heat.
Truth here for triumph serv'^es

To show her power is great
Whom no desert can overcome,

Nor no distress intreat.
Time past lays up my joy.

And time to come my grief ;
She ever must be my desire.

And never my relief.
Wrong her lieutenant is ;

My wounded thoughts are they
Who have no power to keep the field.

Nor will to rmi away.
O rueful constancy !

And where is change so base
As it may be compared with thee

In scorn and in disgrace ?
Like as the kings forlorn.

Deposed from their estate.
Yet cannot choose but love the ci"own,

Although new kings they hate ;

154 C^LICA

If they do plead their right,

Nay, if they only live,
Offences to the crown alike

Their good and ill shall give ;
So I would I were not.

Because I may complain
And cannot choose but love my wrongs.

And joy to wish in vain ;
This faith condemneth me.

My right doth rumour move,
I may not know the cause I fell.

Nor yet without cause love.
Then, Love, Avhere is rewai'd.

At least where is the fame
Of them that being, bear thy cross

And being not, thy name ?
The world's example I,

A fable eveiywhere,
A well from whence the springs are dried,

A tree that doth not bear ;
I like the bird in cage,

At first with cunning caught.
And in my bondage for delight

With greater cunning taught ;

CiELICA 155

Now owner's humour dies ;

I neither loved nor fed
Nor freed am, till in the cage

Forgotten I be dead.
The ship of Greece, the streams,

And she, be not the same
They were, although ship, streams

And she still bear their antique name.
The wood which was, is worn ;

Those waves are run away.
Yet still a ship, and still a stream

Still running to a sea.
She loved and still she loves.

But doth not still love me ;
To all except myself yet is

As she was wont to be.
O, my once happy thoughts.

The heaven where grace did dwell.
My saint hath turned away her face.

And made that heaven my hell !
A hell, for so is tliat

From whence no souls return,
Where, while our spirits * are sacrificed.

They waste not though they bum.

* Written " sp'rits."

^56 C.^LICA

Since then this is my state.

And nothing worse than this,
Behold the map of death-like life

Exiled from lovely bliss ;
Alone among the world

Strange with my friends to be.
Showing my full to them that scorn^

See not or will not see ;
My heart a wilderness.

My studies only fear.
And as in shadows of curst death,

A prospect of despair ;
My exercise must be

My horrors to repeat,
My peace, joy, end, and sacrifice

Her dead love to entreat ;
My food, the time that was ;

The time to come, my fast ;
For drink, the barren thirst I feel

Of glories that are past ;
Sighs and salt tears my bath :

Reason, my looking-glass.
To show me he most wretched is

That once most hap])y was ;

CtELICA 157

Forlone * desires my clock

To tell me every day
That time hath stol'n love, life, and all

But my distress away ;
For music heavy signs, f

My walk an inward woe,
Which like a shadow ever shall

Before my body go ;
And I myself am he

That doth with none compare,
Exce})t in woes and lack of worth.

Whose states more wretched are
Let no man ask my name,

Nor what else I should be ;
For Greiv-ill, pain, forlorn estate

Do best decipher me.

* The .MS. has " Forlorn." t Sighs (?).

158 C .E L I C A

Farewell, sweet boy, complain not of my truth ;
Thy mother loved thee not with more devotion ;
For to thy boy's play I gave all my youth ;
Young master, I did hope for your promotion.

While some sought honours, prince's thoughts

observing.
Many wooed fame, the child of pain and anguish.
Others judged inward good a chief deserving,
I in thy wanton visions joyed to languish.

I bowed not to thy image for succession,
Nor bound thy bow to shoot reformed kindness.
Thy plays of hope and fear were my confession.
The spectacles to my life was thy blindness ;
But Cupid, now farewell, I will go play me
With thoughts that please me less, and less
betray me.

C^LICA 159

Love is the peace whereto all thoughts do strive.
Done and begun with all our powers in one ;
The first and last in us that is alive.
End of the good and therewith pleased alone.

Perfection's spirit, goddess of the mind,
Passed through hope, desire, grief and fear,
A simple goodness in the flesh refined.
Which of the joys to come doth witness bear.

Constant, because it sees no cause to vary,
A quintessence of passions overthro-wai.
Raised above all that change of objects carry,
A nature by no other nature known ;
For glory's of eternity a frame.
That by all bodies else obscures her name.

160 C^LICA

The earth with tliuuder torn^ with fii-e blasted,
With waters drowned, with windy palsy shaken
Cannot for this with heaven be distasted,
Since thunder, rain and winds from earth are

taken.
Man torn with love, with in^vard furies blasted.
Drowned with despair, Avith fleshly lustings shaken.
Cannot for this with heaven be distasted,
Love, fury, lustings out of man are taken.
Then man, endure thyself, those clouds will

vanish ;
Life is a top which whipping soitow driveth ;
Wisdom must bear what our flesh cannot banish.
The humble lead, the stubborn bootless striveth ;

Or man, forsake thyself, to heaven turn thee ;

Her flames enlighten nature, never bum thee.

C^LICA 161

LXX.VVIII

Whenas man's life, the light of human lust,

In socket of his earthly Ian thorn bums,

That all this glory unto ashes must,

And generations to corruption turns ;

Then fond desires that only fear their end.
Do vainly wish for life, but to amend.

But -when this life is from the body fled

To see itself in that eternal glass.

Where time doth end and thoughts accuse the
dead,

Where all to come is one with all that was ;
Then living men ask how he left his breath.
That while he lived neA er thought of death.

162 C.ELI C A

Man, dream no more of curious mysteries,
As what was liere before the world was made,
The first man's Hfe, the state of paradise,
Where heaven is or hell's eternal shade ;
For God's works are like Him, all infinite,
And curious search but crafty sin's delisfht.

The flood that did and dreadful fire that shall
Drown and burn up the malice of the earth,
The divers tongues and Babylon's downfall,
Are nothing to the man's renewed birth ;

First let the law plough up thy wicked heart
That Christ may come, and all these types
depart.

When thou hast swept the house that all is clear,
When thou the dust hast shaken from thy feet.
When God's all-might doth in thy flesh appear.
Then seas with streams above the sky do meet ;
For goodness only doth Cod comprehend,
Knows what was first, and what shall be the
end.

GAELIC A ]G3

The Manicheans did no idols make

Without themselves, nor worshij) gods of wood ;

Yet idols did in their ideas take.

And figured Christ as on the cross he stood.
Thus did they when they earnestly did pray.
Till clearer faith this idol took away.

We seem more inwardly to know the Son,
And see our oM'n salvation in His blood ;
When this is said, we think the work is done.
And with the Father hold our portion good :
As if true life within these words were laid.
For him that in life never words obeyed.

If this be safe, it is a pleasant way.
The cross of Christ is very easily borne;
But six days' labour makes the Sabbath day.
The flesh is dead before grace can be born.

The heart must first bear witness with the book.
The earth must burn ere we for Christ can look.

164 C^LICA

xci

The Turkish government allows no law.

Men's lives and states depend on his behest ;

We think subjection there a servile awe,

Where nature finds both honour, wealth and rest.

Our Christian freedom is, we have a law,

Which even the heathen think no power should

wrest.
Yet proves it crooked as power lists to draw
The rage or grace that lurks in princes' breasts.
Opinion bodies may to shadows give.
But no burnt zone it is, where people live.

C.ELI C A 165

XCII

Rewards of earth, nobility and fame.
To senses glory and to conscience woe,
How little be you for so great a name ?
Yet less is he with men that thinks you so.
For earthly power that stands by fleshly wit,
Hath banished that truth Avhich should govern it.

Nobility power's golden fetter is,
Wherewith \vise kings subjection do adorn.
To make man think her heavy yoke a bliss,
Because it makes him more than he was bom ;
Yet still a slave, dimmed by mists of a crown.
Lest he should see what riseth, what pulls down.

I- ame, that is but good words of evil deeds.
Begotten by the hann we have or do,
Greatest far off, least ever where it breeds.
We both with dangers and disquiet woo.
And in our flesh, the vanity's false glass.
We thus deceived adore these calves of brass.

166 C.ELI C A

XCIII

ViRGULA divina sorcerers call a rod.
Gathered with vows and magic sacrifice,
Wliich borne about, by influence doth nod
Unto the silver where it hidden lies ;

Which makes poor men to these black arts
devout,

Rich only in the wealth which hope finds cut.

Nobility this precious treasure is,
Laid up in secret mysteries of state,
Kings' creature, subjection's gilded bliss.
Where grace, not merit, seems to govern fate.
Mankind I think to be this rod divine.
For to the greatest ever they incline.

Eloquence that is but wisdom speaking well.

The poets feign did make the savage tame ;

Of ears and hearts chained unto tongues they
tell—

I think nobility to be the same ;

For be they fools, or speak they without wit,
We hold them wise, we fools be-wonder it.

C .E L I C A 16T

Invisible there is an art to go.

They say that study nature's secret works ;

And art there is to make things greater show —

In nobleness I think this secret lurks.
For place a coronet on whom you will,
You straight see all great in him but his ill.

168 C^.LICA

The augui*s were of all the world admired.
Flattered by consuls, honoured by the state,
iJecause the event of all thr.t was desired,
They seemed to know, and keep the books of fate

Yet though abroad they thus did boast their
wit.

Alone among themselves they scorned it.

"Mankind, that with his wit doth gild his heart.
Strong in his passions, but in goodness weak.
Making great vices o'er the less an art,
Breeds wonder, and moves ignorance to speak ;
Yet when his fame is to the highest borne.
We know enough to laugh his praise to scorn.

C^LICA 169

' xcv

Men that delight to multiply desire.
Like tellers are that take coin but to pay,
Still tempted to be false with little hire.
Black hands except, which they would have away ;
For where power wisely audits her estate.
The exchequer men's best recompense is hate.

The little maid that weareth out the day
To gather flow'rs still covetous of more.
At night when she with her desire would play
And let her pleasure wanton in her store.
Discerns the first laid underneath the last,
Withered ; and so is all that we have past.

Fix then on good desire, and if you find
Ambitious dreams or fears of over-thwart,
Changes, temptations, blooms of earthly mind.
Yet wave not, since earthly * change hath change
of smart ;
For lest man should think flesh a seat of bliss,
God works that his joy mixed with sorrow is.

* The MS. has " each."

170 CiELICA

Malice and love, in their ways opposite —
The one to hurt itself for others' good.
The other, to have good by others' spite —
Both raging most when they be most withstood.
Though enemies yet do in this agree.
That both still break the hearts whereiii
they be.

Malice a habit is, wrought in the spirit

By inti'icate opinions' information

Of scornful wrong or of suppressing merit.

Which either wounds men's states or reputation,

And tyrant-like, though show of strength it
bear.

Yet is but weakness grown, enraged by fear.

Love is the true or fsilse report of sense.
Who sent as spies, returning news of worth.
With over-wonder breed the heart's offence.
Not bringing in but canying pleasure forth,

And child-like must have all things that they
see.

So much less lovers than things loved be.

CiELICA 171

Malice, like ruin, with itself overthrows
Mankind, and therefore plays a devil's part ;
Love pulls itself down, but to build up those
It loves, and therefore bears an angel's heart.
Tyrants through fear and malice feed on blood,
Good kings secure at home, seek all men's good.

172 C^LICA

In those years when our sense, desire and wit,
Combine that reason shall not rule the heart,
Pleasure is chosen as a goddess fit
The wealth of nature freely to impart,
Who like an idol doth apparelled sit
In all the glories of opinion's art.

The further off the greater beauty showing.
Lost only or made less by perfect knowing ;

Which fair usurjier runs a rebel's way,
For though elect of sense, wit and desire.
Yet rules she none but such as will obey.
And to that end becomes what the}^ aspire ;
Making that torment which before was play,
Those dews to kindle which did quench the fire ;
Now honour's image, now again like lust.
But earthly still, and end repenting must.

While man, who satyr-like then knows the flame,
When kissing of her fair-appearing light.

C.ELICA n:i

He feels a scorching power hid in the same,
Which cannot be revealed to the sight.
Yet doth by over heat so shrink this frame.
Of fiery * apparitions in delight,

That as in orbs where many passions reign.
What one affection joys the rest complain.

In which confused sphere man being placed
With equal prospect over good or ill.
The one unkno^vn, the other in distaste.
Flesh, with her many moulds of change and will
So his affections cames on, and casts
In declination to the error still.

As by the truth he gets no other light

But to see vice a restless infinite.

By which true map of his mortality,
Man's many idols are at once defaced.
And all hypocrisies of frail humanity.
Either exiled, waived, or disgraced,
Fal'n nature by the streams of vanity.
Forced up to call for grace above her placed ;
Whence from the depth of fatal desolation,
Springs up the height of his regeneration.

* The MS. has " specious."

174 CiELICA

Which light of life doth all those shadows war
Of woe and lust that dazzle and inthrall.
Whereby man's joys with goodness bounded are.
And to remorse his fears transformed all.
His six days' labour past, and that clear star.
Figure of sabbath's rest, raised by this fall ;

For God comes not till man be overthrown ;

Peace is the seed of grace in dead flesh sown.

Flesh but the top which only whips make go,

The steel whose rust is by afflictions worn.

The dust which good men from their feet must

throw,
A living-dead thing till it be ncAv born,
A phoenix-life that from self-ruin grows,
Or viper rather through her parents torn,
A boat to which the world itself is sea,
Wherein the mind fails on her fatal way.

C^LICA 175

XCVIII

Eternal truth, almighty, infinite.

Only exiled from man's fleshly heart,

Where ignorance and disobedience fight.

In liell and sin, which shall have greatest part ;

When thy sweet mercy opens forth the light
Of grace which giveth eyes unto the blind.
And with the law even ploughest up our sprite
To faith wherein flesh maj' salvation find :

Thou bid'st us pray ; and we do pray to thee.
But as to power and God without us placed,
Thinking a wish may wear out vanity.
Or habits be by miracles defaced.

One thought to God we give, the rest to sin ;
Quickly unbent is all desire of good ;
True words pass out but have no being Avithin ;
We pray to Christ, yet help to shed his blood.

For while we say believe, and feel it not.
Promise amends and yet despair in it.
Hear Sodom judged, and go not out with Lot,
Make law and gospel riddles of the Mit,

V.'e with the Jews even Christ still crucify.

As not yet come to our impiety.

176 C^LICA

XCIX

Wrapt up, O Lord, in man's degeneration.
The glories of thy truth, thy joys eternal.
Reflect upon my soul dark desolation.
And ugly prospects o'er the spirits* infernal.
Lord, I have sinned, and mine iniquity
Deserves this hell ; yet, Lord, deliver me.

Thy power and mercy never comprehended.
Rest lively imaged in my conscience wounded ;
Mercy to grace, and power to fear extended.
Both infinite, and I in both confounded ;
Lord, I have sinned, and mine iniquity
Deserves this hell ; yet. Lord, deliver me.

If from this depth of sin, this hellish grave.
And fatal absence from my Saviour's glory
I could implore his mercy who can save,
And for my sins, not pains of sin, be sorry ;
Lord, from this horror of iniquity
And hellish grave, thou wouldst deliver me.

* Written " sp'rits."

C^LICA 177

Down in the depth of mine iniquity.
That ugly centre of infernal spirits,
Where each sin feels her own deformity
In these peculiar torments she inherits.
Deprived of human graces and divine.
Even there appears this saving God of mine.

And in this fatal mirror of transgression

Shows man as fruit of his degeneration.

The error's ugly infinite impression,

Which bears the faithless doom * to desperation ;
Deprived of human graces and divine,
Even there appears this saving God of mine.

In power and truth Almighty and Eternal,
Which on the sin reflects strange desolation.
With glory scourging all the spirits t infernal
And uncreated hell with unprivation.
Deprived of human graces, not J divine.
Even there appears this saving God of mine.

* The MS, has "down." t Written " sp'rits."
I And(?).

178 C^LICA

For on this spiritual * cross condemned lying
To pains infernal by eternal doonij
I see my Saviour for the same sins dying,
And from that hell I feared, to free me, come ;
Deprived of human graces nott divine.
Thus hath His death raised up this soul of mine.

* Written ♦' sp'ritual." f And (?).

C ^ L I C A 1 7<>

CI

In night when colours all to black are cast.
Distinction lost or gone clown with the light,
The eye a watch to inward senses placed.
Not seeing yet still having power of sight,

Gives vain alarums to the inward sense,
^\^lere fear stirred up with witty tyranny.
Confounds all powers, and through self-offence
Doth forge and raise impossibility ;

Such as in thick depriving darkness*
Proper reflections of the en-or be.
And images of self-confusedness,*
Which hurt imaginations only see ;

And from this nothing seen, tells news of
devils.

Which but expressions be of inward evils.

* The MS. has "darknesse" and " confused-
nesse."

180 C^LICA

CII

Man's youth it is a field of larjre desires.

Which pleased within, doth all without them

please ;
For in this love of men live those sweet fires
That kindle worth and kindness unto praise,
And where self-love most from her selfness

gives,
Man greatest in himself and other lives.

Old age again which deems this pleasure vain.
Dulled with experience of unthankfulness.
Scornful of fame as but effects of pain.
Folds up that freedom in her naiTOwness,
And for it only loves her own dreams best.
Scorned and contemned is of all the rest.

Such working youth there is again in state.
Which at the first with justice, piety.
Fame and reward, true instruments of fate.
Strive to improve this frail humanity ;

By which as kings enlarge true worth in us.
So cro'WTis again are well enlarged thus.

CiELICA 181

But states grow old, when princes turn away
From honour to take pleasure for their end ;
For that a large is, this a narrow way,
That wins a world, and this a few dark friends ;

The one improving worthiness spreads far ;

Under the other, good things prisoners are.

Thus sceptres shadow-like grow short or long.
As worthy or unworthy princes reign.
And must contract, cannot be large or strong.
If man's weak humours real* powers restrain ;
So that when power and nature do oppose.
All but the worst men are assured to lose.

For Avhen respect which is the strength of states.
Grows to decline by kings' descent within,
That powers' baby-creatures dare set rates
Of scorn upon worth, honour upon sin,

Then though kings, player-like, act glory's
part.

Yet all within them is but fear and art.

* Royal (?).

182 C^LICA

cm

The serpent, sin, by showing human hist,
Visions, and dreams, enticed man to do
Folhes, in which exceed his God he must,
And know more than he was created to —
A charm which made the ugly sin seem good,
And is by fjil'n spirits only understood.

Now man no sooner from his mean creation,

Trod this excess of uncreated sin.

But straight he changed his being to privation,

Hon-or and death at this gate passing in ;
Whereby immortal life, made for man's good,
Is since become the hell of flesh and blood.

But grant that there were no eternity.
That life were all, and pleasure life of it.
In sin's excess there yet confusions* be
Which spoil his peace and passionate his wit.

Making his nature less, his reason thrall

To tyranny of vice unnatural.

* The MS. has "remorses."

CiELICA 183

And as hell fires not wanting heat want light,

So these strange witchcrafts which like pleasure
be,

Not wanting fair enticements, want delight.

Inward being nothing but deformity.
And do at open doors let frail powers in
To that straight binding little-ease of sin.

Is there ought more wonderful than this.
That man even in the state of his perfection,
All things uncursed, nothing yet done amiss,
And so in him no base of his defection.

Should fall from God and break his Maker's

will,
Which could have no end, but to know the
ill?

I ask the rather, since in Paradise
Eternity was object to his passion,
And he in goodness like his Maker wise.
As from his spirit taking life and fashion,

What greater power there was to master
this.

Or how a less could work, my question is.

184 C^LICA

For who made all, 'tis sure yet could not make.
Any above himself as princes can.
So as against his will no power could take
A creature from him, nor corrupt a man ;

And yet who thinks he marred that made us

good,
As well may think God less than flesh and
blood.

Where did our being then seek out privation ?
Above, within, without us all was pure,
Only the angels from their discreation,
Bj' smart declared no being was secure.

But that transcendant goodness which sub-
sists.

By forming and reforming what it lists.

So as within the man there was no more

But possibility to work upon,

And in these spirits which were fal'n before.

An abstract curst eternity alone.

Refined by their high places in creation
To add more craft and malice to tempta-
tion.

CiELICA 185

No ; with what force upon these middle splieres
Of probable and possibility.
Which no one constant demonstration bears.
And so can neither bind nor bounded be,

What those could work, that having lost their
God,

Aspire to be our tempters and our rod.

Too well is witnessed by this fall of ours.

For we not knowing yet that there was ill.

Gave easy credit to deceiving powers.

Who wrought upon us only by our will.
Persuading like it all was to it free.
Since where no sin was, there no law could
be.

And as finite things seek infinite,
From thence deriving what beyond them is.
So man was led by charms of this dark spirit.
Which he could not know till he did amiss.

To trust those serpents who, learned since they

fell.
Knew more than we did — even their own made
hell.

186 C^LICA

Which crafty odds made us those clouds embrace
Where sin in ambush lay to overthrow
Nature, that would presume to fathom grace.
Or could believe what God said was not so.

Sin, then we knew thee not and could not
hate,

And now we know thee, now it is too late !

C^LICA 187

CIV

O FALSE and treacherous probability.
Enemy of truth, and friend to wickedness.
With whose blear eyes opinion leanis to see
Truth's feeble party here and barrenness !

When thou hast thus misled humanity.
And lost obedience in the pride of wit.
With reason dar'st thou judge the Deity,
And in thy flesh make bold to fashion it !

Vain thought ! the word of power a riddle is.
And till the veils be rent, the flesh new bom.
Reveals no wonders of that inward bliss.
Which but where faith is, everywhei-e finds scorn.
Who therefore censures God with fleshly sp'rit.
As well in time may wrap up infinite.

188 CiELICA

cv

Two sects there be in this earth opposite.
The one make Mahomet a deity,
A tyrant Tartar raised by war and sleight,
Ambitious ways of infidehty.

The Avorld their heaven is ; the world is great,.

And racketh those hearts where it hath receipt.

The other sect of cloistered people is.

Less to the world with which they seem to war.

And so in less things drawn to do amiss,

As all lusts less than lust of conquest ai'e.

Now if of God both these have but the name.
What mortal idol then can equal ftmie ?

C^LICA 189

cvi

Three things there be in man's opinion dear :
Fame, many friends, and fortune's dignities ;
False visions all, which in our sense appear
To sanctify desire's idolatry.

For what is fortune, but a wat'ry glass,
Whose crystal forehead wants a steely back.
Where rain and storms bear all away that was.
Whose ship alike both depths and shallows wrack !

Fame again, which from blinding power takes light.
Both Caesar's shadow is and Cato's friend.
The child of humour, not allied to right.
Living by oft exchange of winged end.

And many friends, false strength of feeble mind.
Betraying equals, as true slaves to might ;
Like echoes still send voices down the wind.
But never in adversity find right.

190 CiELICA

Then man, though viitue of extremities.

The middle be, and so hath two to one ;

By place and nature constant enemies.

And against both these no strength but her own ;

Yet quit thou for her, friends, fame, fortune's
throne ;

Devils there may be and gods but one.

CiELICA 191

How falls it out, the sincere magistrate.
Who keeps the course of justice sacredly,
Reaps from the people reverence and hate.
But not the love which follows liberty ?

The cause is plain, since tax on people's good
Is hardly bom, since having no foresight,
Hates reason's works as strange to flesh and blood ;
Whence he that strives to keep man's heart upright

Taxeth his fancies at an higher rate.
And lajdng laws upon his frailty.
Brings all his vices to a bankrupt state.
So much is true worth more refined than we.

Again, who tasks men's wealth, pierce but their
skin ;

Who roots their vice out, must pierce deeper in.

192 C.ELI C A

Isis, in whom the poet's feigning wit
Figures the goddess of authorit)^
And makes her on an ass in triumph sit.
As if power's throne were man's humility ;
Inspire this ass, as well becoming it.
Even like a type of wind-blown vanity.

With pride to bear power's gilding scorching
heat

For no hire but opinion to be great !

So as this beast, forgetting what he bears,
Bridled and burdened by the hand of might.
While he beholds the swarms of hope and fears
Which wait upon ambition infinite.
Proud of the glorious furniture he wears.
Takes all to Isis offered, but his right ;
Till wearmess, the spur or want of food.
Makes gilded curbs of all beasts understood.

C^LICA 193

cix

What is the causCj why states that war and wiii,
Have honour and breed men of better fame,
Than states in peace, since war and conquest sin
In blood, wrong Hberty, all trades of shame ?
Force-framing instruments which it must use,
Proud in excess, and glory to abuse.

The reason is : peace is a quiet nurse

Of idleness, and idleness the field

Where wit and power change all seeds to

worse.
By narrow self- wit upon which they build.

And thence bring forth captived inconstant

ends,
Neither to princes nor to people friends.

Besides, the sin of peace on subjects feed.
And thence wound power, which, for it all things
can,

N

194 CJiLICA

With wrong to one, despairs in many breed ;

For while laws, oaths, power's creditors to man,
Make humble subjects dream of native right,
Man's faith abused adds courage to despite.

Where conquest works by strength, and stirs up

fame,
A glorious echo, pleasing doom of pain.
Which in the sleep of death yet keeps a name.
And makes detracting loss speak ill in vain.

For to great actions time so friendly is.
As o'er the means, albeit the means be ill.
It casts forgetfulness ; veils things amiss
With power and honour to encourage will.

Besides things hard a reputation bear ;

To die resolved, though guilty, wonder breeds.

Yet what strength those be which can blot out
fear,

An to self-ruin joyfully proceeds.

Ask them that from the ashes of this fire,
With new lives still to such new flames aspire !

C iE L I C A 19&

SioN lies Avaste, and thy Jerusalem,

O Lord, is fal'n to utter desolation ;

Against thy prophets and thy holy men.

The sin hath wrought a fatal combination.
Profaned thy name, thy worship overthrown,
And made thee, living Lord, a God unknown !

Tliy powerful laws, thy wonders of creation.
Thy word incarnate, glorious heaven, dark hell.
Lie shadowed under man's degeneration,
Thy Christ still crucified for doing well ;
Impiety, O Lord, sits on thy throne,
Which makes thee, living light, a God unknown !

Man's superstition hath thy truths entombed.
His atheism again her pomps defaceth.
That sensual unsatiable vast womb
Of thy seen Church, thy unseen Church dis-
graceth ;
There lives no truth with them that seem thine

own.
Which makes thee, living Lord, a God unknown !

1^6 C.ELI C A

Yet unto thee, Lord, mirror of transgression,
We wlio for earthly idols have forsaken
Thy heavenly image, sinless pure impression,
And so in nets of vanity lie taken.

All desolate implore that to thine own.
Lord, thou no longer live a God unknown !

Yet, Lord, let Israel's plagues not be eternal
Nor sin forever cloud thy sacred mountains.
Nor with false flames spiritual but infernal,
Dry up thy mercy's ever-springing fountains ;
Rather, sweet Jesus, fill up time and come.
To yield the sin her everlasting doom !

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